Reservoir Regulation for Ecological Protection and Remediation: A Case Study of the Irtysh River Basin, China

Dan Wang, Shuanghu Zhang (), Guoli Wang, Yin Liu, Hao Wang and Jingjing Gu
Additional contact information
Dan Wang: School of Hydraulic Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Shuanghu Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Simulations and Regulations of Water Cycles in River Basins (SKL-WAC), China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing 100038, China
Guoli Wang: School of Hydraulic Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Yin Liu: School of Environment and Ecology, Jiangsu Open University, Nanjing 210036, China
Hao Wang: State Key Laboratory of Simulations and Regulations of Water Cycles in River Basins (SKL-WAC), China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing 100038, China
Jingjing Gu: State Key Laboratory of Simulations and Regulations of Water Cycles in River Basins (SKL-WAC), China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing 100038, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-24

Abstract: Hydrological processes play a key role in ecosystem stability in arid regions. The operation of water conservancy projects leads to changes in the natural hydrological processes, thereby damaging the ecosystem balance. Ecological regulation is an effective non-engineering measure to relieve the influence of water conservancy projects on ecosystems. However, there are still some problems, such as an insufficient understanding of hydraulic processes and difficulty evaluating the application effects. In this study, the theory of ecological reservoir regulation coupled with hydrological and ecological processes was examined and ecological protection and remediation were investigated using the valley forests and grasslands in the Irtysh River Basin as a case study. The results demonstrated that (1) to meet the demand of the hydrological processes in the valley forests and grasslands, in terms of ecological regulation, the peak flow and flood peak duration of the reservoir, named 635, in the Irtysh River Basin should be 1000 m 3 s −1 and 168 h, respectively, and the total water volume of ecological regulation should be 605 million m³. Ecological regulation can guarantee that the floodplain range reaches 64.3% of the core area of ecological regulation and the inundation duration in most areas is between 4–8 d; (2) an insufficient ecological water supply would seriously affect the inundation effects. The inundation areas were reduced by 2.8, 5.1, 10.3, and 19.3%, respectively, under the four insufficient ecological water supply conditions (528, 482, 398, and 301 million m 3 ), and the inundation duration showed a general decreasing trend; (3) the construction of ecological sluices and the optimization of the reservoir regulation rules could effectively relieve the influences of an insufficient ecological water supply. At water supply volumes of 528 and 482 million m 3 , the regulation rules should assign priority to the flood peak flow; at water supply volumes of 398 and 301 million m 3 , the regulation rules should assign priority to the flood peak duration. Consequently, this study provides a reference for ecological protection in arid regions and the optimization of ecological regulation theories.

Keywords: ecological protection; ecological regulation; hydrological process; hydrodynamic model; valley forests and grasslands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11582/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11582/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:18:p:11582-:d:914868

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().