The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics

Abstract Understanding the role of anthropogenic activities in the hydrological cycle is critical to support sustainable water management for the Yangtze River Basin (YRB), which experiences extensive dam operation, irrigation and water withdrawal. However, this remains challenging due to insufficie...

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Main Authors: Haoran Hao, Ningpeng Dong, Mingxiang Yang, Jianhui Wei, Xuejun Zhang, Shiqin Xu, Denghua Yan, Liliang Ren, Guoyong Leng, Lu Chen, Xudong Zhou, Hao Wang, Lijuan Song, Harald Kunstmann
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2024-10-01
Series:Water Resources Research
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR037841
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author Haoran Hao
Ningpeng Dong
Mingxiang Yang
Jianhui Wei
Xuejun Zhang
Shiqin Xu
Denghua Yan
Liliang Ren
Guoyong Leng
Lu Chen
Xudong Zhou
Hao Wang
Lijuan Song
Harald Kunstmann
author_facet Haoran Hao
Ningpeng Dong
Mingxiang Yang
Jianhui Wei
Xuejun Zhang
Shiqin Xu
Denghua Yan
Liliang Ren
Guoyong Leng
Lu Chen
Xudong Zhou
Hao Wang
Lijuan Song
Harald Kunstmann
author_sort Haoran Hao
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Understanding the role of anthropogenic activities in the hydrological cycle is critical to support sustainable water management for the Yangtze River Basin (YRB), which experiences extensive dam operation, irrigation and water withdrawal. However, this remains challenging due to insufficient accuracies of existing process‐based models for fully depicting anthropogenic activities as part of the hydrological cycle. To this end, this study enhances a national‐scale coupled land surface‐hydrologic‐hydrodynamic model (CLHMS) with a dynamic irrigation scheme for distinct crops, an extended reservoir operation scheme incorporating both water storage anomalies and water demand anomalies, and a cost‐function‐based approach to link water demands with reservoir operation. The enhanced model is extensively validated against historical streamflow, water storage of 90 reservoirs, and irrigation water withdrawal in the YRB, and the water level and storage of the Poyang Lake (PYL). By setting up controlled experiments in the YRB, we show that the streamflow decreases by 2%–6% due to irrigation and water withdrawal, and manifests an attenuated seasonality due to reservoir operation. At the basin scale, the increasing trend of extreme flood peaks exhibits a reversal under human activities, with the flood mitigation effect of irrigation and water withdrawal accounting for up to 50% of that of reservoir operation. The hydrodynamics of the PYL also exhibits considerable human‐induced alterations, with a 1.79 m‐decrease in the water level at the end of flood season. Our study sheds light on quantifying anthropogenic hydrologic impacts at basin scales, with important implications for understanding the co‐evolution between anthropogenic activities and the hydrological cycle.
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spelling doaj-art-e13bfbf1bf7746719045594d026503082025-08-20T02:36:34ZengWileyWater Resources Research0043-13971944-79732024-10-016010n/an/a10.1029/2024WR037841The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake HydrodynamicsHaoran Hao0Ningpeng Dong1Mingxiang Yang2Jianhui Wei3Xuejun Zhang4Shiqin Xu5Denghua Yan6Liliang Ren7Guoyong Leng8Lu Chen9Xudong Zhou10Hao Wang11Lijuan Song12Harald Kunstmann13State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Intelligent Construction and Operation Tianjin University Tianjin ChinaState Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Beijing ChinaState Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Beijing ChinaInstitute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK‐IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Garmisch‐Partenkirchen GermanyState Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Beijing ChinaHydrology, Agriculture and Land Observation (HALO) Laboratory Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal Saudi ArabiaState Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Beijing ChinaThe National Key Laboratory of Water Disaster Prevention Hohai University Nanjing ChinaKey Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing ChinaSchool of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan ChinaInstitute of Hydraulics and Ocean Engineering Ningbo University Ningbo ChinaState Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Beijing ChinaSchool of Geospatial Engineering and Science, Sun Yat‐sen University, and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) Zhuhai ChinaInstitute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK‐IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Garmisch‐Partenkirchen GermanyAbstract Understanding the role of anthropogenic activities in the hydrological cycle is critical to support sustainable water management for the Yangtze River Basin (YRB), which experiences extensive dam operation, irrigation and water withdrawal. However, this remains challenging due to insufficient accuracies of existing process‐based models for fully depicting anthropogenic activities as part of the hydrological cycle. To this end, this study enhances a national‐scale coupled land surface‐hydrologic‐hydrodynamic model (CLHMS) with a dynamic irrigation scheme for distinct crops, an extended reservoir operation scheme incorporating both water storage anomalies and water demand anomalies, and a cost‐function‐based approach to link water demands with reservoir operation. The enhanced model is extensively validated against historical streamflow, water storage of 90 reservoirs, and irrigation water withdrawal in the YRB, and the water level and storage of the Poyang Lake (PYL). By setting up controlled experiments in the YRB, we show that the streamflow decreases by 2%–6% due to irrigation and water withdrawal, and manifests an attenuated seasonality due to reservoir operation. At the basin scale, the increasing trend of extreme flood peaks exhibits a reversal under human activities, with the flood mitigation effect of irrigation and water withdrawal accounting for up to 50% of that of reservoir operation. The hydrodynamics of the PYL also exhibits considerable human‐induced alterations, with a 1.79 m‐decrease in the water level at the end of flood season. Our study sheds light on quantifying anthropogenic hydrologic impacts at basin scales, with important implications for understanding the co‐evolution between anthropogenic activities and the hydrological cycle.https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR037841human impactreservoir operationirrigationland surfacehydrologyhydrodynamics
spellingShingle Haoran Hao
Ningpeng Dong
Mingxiang Yang
Jianhui Wei
Xuejun Zhang
Shiqin Xu
Denghua Yan
Liliang Ren
Guoyong Leng
Lu Chen
Xudong Zhou
Hao Wang
Lijuan Song
Harald Kunstmann
The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics
Water Resources Research
human impact
reservoir operation
irrigation
land surface
hydrology
hydrodynamics
title The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics
title_full The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics
title_fullStr The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics
title_full_unstemmed The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics
title_short The Changing Hydrology of an Irrigated and Dammed Yangtze River: Streamflow, Extremes, and Lake Hydrodynamics
title_sort changing hydrology of an irrigated and dammed yangtze river streamflow extremes and lake hydrodynamics
topic human impact
reservoir operation
irrigation
land surface
hydrology
hydrodynamics
url https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR037841
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