Changes in Water Resources Systems:
Methodologies to Maintain Water Security and Ensure Integrated Management
(Proceedings of Symposium HS3006 at IUGG2007, Perugia, July 2007). IAHS Publ. 315, 2007, 142-148
Computation
of minimum and optimal instream ecological flow for the Yiluohe River
ZIQIANG XIA, QIONGFANG LI, LIDAN GUO, JIE LI, wei zhang & huiqing wang
State Key Laboratory of Hydrology, Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
qfli@hhu.edu.cn
Abstract Water is the source of life. The existence of stream species and the formation of stream population structure are closely associated with stream hydrological processes and their variations. However, with the utilization and development of water resources in river basins, river hydrological processes and characteristics have been altered by human activities to some extent, and, as a result, the stability and the biodiversity of river ecosystems have been affected. This paper analyses the relationship between the river ecosystem and its hydrological processes and characteristics, and proposes the computation methods of minimum ecological flow and optimal ecological flow. The paper selected the Yiluohe River, one of the tributaries of the Yellow River, as a case study site, employed the proposed methods to compute minimum instream ecological flow processes and optimal instream ecological flow processes at three typical hydrological stations and their corresponding ecological water requirements, and evaluated the computed minimum ecological flow and optimal ecological flow by the Tennant Method. The results provide a reference for preserving river hydrological processes and characteristics and maintaining river ecosystem stability and health.
Key words minimum instream ecological flow; optimal
instream ecological flow; Yellow River; Yiluohe River