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http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s12665-016-5911-z&domain=pdf
Web End = Environ Earth Sci (2016) 75:1111 DOI 10.1007/s12665-016-5911-z
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s12665-016-5911-z&domain=pdf
Web End = THEMATIC ISSUE
Optimal operation of the Three Gorges Reservoir subject to the ecological water level of Dongting Lake
Lingquan Dai1,2 Jingqiao Mao3 Yu Wang1,2 Huichao Dai1,2
Peipei Zhang3 Jiali Guo1
Received: 18 April 2016 / Accepted: 18 July 2016 / Published online: 25 July 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Abstract Due to simultaneous impoundment of reservoirs on the Yangtze River, the water level of Dongting Lake has decreased in recent years, which has threatened the health of the lakes ecosystem. To mitigate the adverse effects resulting from conventional reservoir operation, an ecologically oriented reservoir optimization model was developed to maintain the water level of Dongting Lake as close as possible to the ecological water level while simultaneously maximizing hydropower production from the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR). The relationship between the water level of the lake and the amount of water released from the reservoir was modeled using the support vector regression method, and the bi-objective optimization model was solved using the chaos-genetic algorithm. The applicability of the model was demonstrated in a case study of the TGR considering ve regulatory scenarios. Relative to conventional operation, the numerical results indicate that the proposed optimized operational schemes could
increase the hydropower production of the TGR while maintaining a water level near the EWL in Dongting Lake.
Keywords River-connected lake Three Gorges
Reservoir Operation rules Ecological water level
Dongting Lake
Introduction
Reservoirs are important water resources with many benecial uses. For example, reservoirs are used for irrigation of agricultural land and meeting drinking water and utility demands (Castelletti et al. 2014; Guo et al. 2012). China has been particularly active in dam construction, with the construction of more than half of the worlds largest dams since the 1950s. In the Yangtze River Basin, more than 45,700 dams have been constructed, with a total capacity of 220.0 billion m3. However, the operation of reservoirs inevitably leads to anthropogenic changes in natural water ow, which plays a critical role in sustaining the ecology of river basins, by increasing or reducing reservoir release. Many of the original ecological, hydrographic, and geo-morphological features can be signicantly altered (Cai et al. 2013; Yan and Edwards 2013). As the...