Abstract
The Min River is the largest river in Fujian Province in southeastern China. The construction of a series of dams along the upper reaches of the Min River, especially the Shuikou Dam, which started filling in 1993, modified the flow processes at the lower Min River, leading to the significant increase in low-flows and slightly decrease in flood-flows. At the same time, reservoirs have more effects on the sediment transport process than flow process by trapping most sediment in the reservoirs, and greatly reduced the amount of sediment transporting downstream. Increase in vegetation cover also contributes to the decrease in sediment yield. The reduction in sediment together with excessive sand mining in the lower Min River resulted in the severe downward erosion of the riverbed. Using a reformulated elasticity approach to quantifying climatic and anthropogenic contributions to sediment changes, the relative contribution of precipitation variability and human activities to sediment reduction in the lower Min River are quantified, which shows that the sediment reduction is fully caused by human activities (including land use/land cover changes and dam construction).
Highlights
It is known that the construction of reservoir dams will change the timing, magnitude, and frequency of low and high flows (Magilligan and Nislow, 2005; Wang et al, 2011) [1,2]
There was no significant change of precipitation during 1950–2017, the construction of a series of dams along the upper reaches of the Min River, especially the Shuikou Dam, which started filling in 1993, modified the flow processes, leading to the there was no significant change of precipitation during 1950–2017, the construction of a series of dams along the upper reaches of the Min River, especially the Shuikou Dam, which started filling in 1993, modified the flow processes, leading to the significant increase in low-flows and slightly decrease in flood-flows at Zhuqi located at the lower Min River
The variability of annual runoff is less sensitive to the variability of precipitation because large reservoirs can modulate the variation of annual runoff by reducing the outflow in wet years and increasing the outflow in dry years
Summary
It is known that the construction of reservoir dams will change the timing, magnitude, and frequency of low and high flows (Magilligan and Nislow, 2005; Wang et al, 2011) [1,2]. The Min River is the largest river in Fujian Province of China with a series of major reservoirs built in the catchment, among which Shuikou Dam is the largest one. This reservoir controlled 86% of the drainage area of the Min River. We will analyze how the hydrology in the lower reaches of the Min River, including the streamflow and the sediment transport, is altered under the joint effects of a series of dams, especially the construction of Shuikou Dam, and quantify the relative contribution of different factors to sediment load changes
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