Research on the Spatiotemporal Effects of Water Temperature in the Construction of Cascade Dams on the Yangtze River Main Stream Based on Optimized CNN-LSTM Attention Model

Shanghong Zhang, Hao Wang, Ruicheng Zhang, Hua Zhang and Yang Zhou ()
Additional contact information
Shanghong Zhang: School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Hao Wang: School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Ruicheng Zhang: School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Hua Zhang: School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Yang Zhou: School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 20, 1-18

Abstract: Hydrothermal conditions are a key indicator influencing the evolution of aquatic ecosystems, closely affecting the physical, chemical, and biological properties of water bodies. The construction of cascaded dams on the main stem of the Yangtze River has altered the natural water temperature regime, impacting the hydrothermal status of the water. Utilizing multi-source remote sensing data from Google Earth Engine to invert river surface water temperatures, a parameter-optimized CNN-LSTM-Attention hybrid interpretable water temperature prediction model was constructed. The model demonstrated credible accuracy. Based on the inversion results, the study revealed the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of water temperature in the main stem of the Yangtze River before and after cascaded dam construction in the lower Jinsha River region and the Three Gorges Reservoir area. The results found that after the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the annual average water temperature increased significantly by 0.813 °C. The “cold water stagnation effect” induced by cascaded development caused the water temperature amplitude to increase from 8.96 °C to 10.6 °C. Furthermore, the regulating effect of tributary confluence exhibited significant differences. For instance, colder tributaries like the Yalong River reduced the main stem water temperature, while warmer tributaries like the Jialing River, conversely, increased the main stem temperature. The construction of cascaded dams led to distinct variation characteristics in the areas downstream of the dams within the reservoir regions, where tributary inflows caused corresponding changes in the main stem water temperature. This study elucidates the long-term spatiotemporal variation characteristics of water temperature in the main stem of the Yangtze River. The model prediction results can assist in constructing an early warning indicator system for water temperature changes, providing reliable data support for promoting water environment sustainability and ecological civilization construction in the river basin.

Keywords: Google Earth Engine; CNN-LSTM Attention model; temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of water temperature; driving factors of water temperature changes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/20/9046/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/20/9046/ (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:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:20:p:9046-:d:1769865

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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