Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Dynamic Regulation of Reservoir Drought Limit Water Level

  • WATER RESOURCES AND THE REGIME OF WATER BODIES
  • Published:
Water Resources Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Drought limit water level has been presented to guide reservoir drought resistance for years. However, current static drought limit water levels neglected the water transfer relationship among different periods. In this study, the Yuqiao Reservoir located in Tianjin, China, was taken as the study area. To avoid the excessive subjectivity brought by the conventional typical drought-year selection method, six indicators were used to analyse inflow intra-drought-season distribution characteristics, and a hierarchical agglomeration cluster method was used to propose a classification of the dry season inflow “shape.” To associate with the reservoir inter-month water transfer relationship, a number pair “early warning period/drought limit water level” format was proposed to represent the limit water level. The early warning period turned out to be related to initial water storage, inflow process in dry season and water supply rules. To overcome the uncertainty in inflow process during the dry season, a rolling computation mechanism was applied in determining the drought limit water level, thus dynamic regulation was realized. Finally, the dynamic reservoir drought limit water level was compared with the conventional method. The results suggest that drought limit water level has broad development potential in improving reservoir drought resistance guidance practices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 7.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  1. Chang, J., Guo, A., Wang, Y., Ha, Y., Zhang, R., Xue, L., and Tu, Z., Reservoir operations to mitigate drought effects with a hedging policy triggered by the drought prevention limiting water level, Water Resour. Res., 2019, vol. 55, pp. 904–922. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017WR022090

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Chen, J., Guo, S., Li, Y., Liu, P., and Zhou, Y., Joint operation and dynamic control of flood limiting water levels for cascade reservoirs, Water Resour. Manag., 2013, vol. 27, pp. 749–763.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Chen, L., Singh, VP., Guo, S., Fang, B., and Liu, P., A new method for identification of flood seasons using directional statistics, Hydrolog. Sci. J., 2013, vol. 58, pp. 28–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. CMWR, China’s Ministry of Water Resources. Hydrologic information bulletin, 2000. http://www.mwr.gov.cn/ sj/tjgb/sqnb/201702/t20170214_860898.html.

  5. Dai, A., Drought under global warming: a review, Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change, 2011, vol. 2, pp. 45–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Draper, A.J. and Lund, J.R., Optimal hedging and carryover storage value, J. Water Res. Plan. Man., 2004, vol. 130, pp. 83–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Esfahanian, E., Nejadhashemi, A.P., Abouali, M., Adhikari, U., Zhang, Z., Daneshvar, F., and Herman, M.R., Development and evaluation of a comprehensive drought index, J. Environ. Manag., 2017, vol. 185, pp. 31–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Esfahanian, E., Nejadhashemi, A.P., Abouali, M., Daneshvar, F., Ameli, A., Herman, M., and Tang, Y., Defining drought in the context of stream health, Ecol. Eng. Ecol. Eng., 2016, vol. 94, pp. 668–681.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Feng, P. and Zhu, Y., Identification of a hydrologic drought for the water supply system, J. Hydraul. Eng., 1997, pp. 72–77.

  10. Giuliani, M., Castelletti, A., Pianosi, F., Mason, E., and Reed, P.M., Curses, tradeoffs, and scalable management: Advancing evolutionary multiobjective direct policy search to improve water reservoir operations, J. Water Res. Plan. Man., 2015, vol. 142, pp. 04015050.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Guo, Q.L., Yang, Y.S., Chang, X.S., and Chen, Z.H., Annual Variation of Heihe River Runoff during 1957–2008, Prog. Geogr., 2011, vol. 30, pp. 550–556.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hannah, D.M., Smith, B.P.G., Gurnell, A.M., and McGregor, G.R., An approach to hydrograph classification, Hydrol. Process., 2000, vol. 14, pp. 317–338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Harris, N.M., Gurnell, A.M., Hannah, D.M., and Petts, G.E., Classification of river regimes: a context for hydroecology, Hydrol. Process., 2000, vol. 14, pp. 2831–2848.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Heim, R.R., A review of twentieth-century drought indices used in the United States, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 2002, vol. 83, pp. 1149–1166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Huang, W.C. and Chou, C.C., Drought early warning system in reservoir operation: Theory and practice, Water Resour. Res., 2005, vol. 41, pp. W11406.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Huang, W.C. and Yuan, L.C., A drought early warning system on real-time multi-reservoir operations, Water. Resour. Res., 2004, vol. 40, pp. W06401.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kalkstein, L.S., Tan, G., and Skindlov, J.A., An evaluation of three clustering procedures for use in synoptic climatological classification, J. Appl. Meteorol., 1987, vol. 26, pp. 717–730.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Karamouz, M., Imen, S., and Nazif, S., Development of a demand driven hydro-climatic model for drought planning, Water Resour. Manag., 2012, vol. 26, pp. 329–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Manning, C., Widmann, M., Bevacqua, E., Van Loon, A.F., Maraun, D., and Vrac, M., Increased probability of compound long-duration dry and hot events in Europe during summer (1950–2013), Environ. Res. Lett., 2019, vol. 14, pp. 094006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Peng, S., Wang, Y., Zhang Y., and Jiang G., Optimal control of drought limit water level for multi-year regulating storage reservoir, J. Hydraul. Eng., 2016, vol. 47, pp. 552–559.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Shiau, J.T., Analytical optimal hedging with explicit incorporation of reservoir release and carryover storage targets, Water Resour. Res., 2011, vol. 47, pp. W01515. https://doi.org/10.1029/2010WR009166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Tu, X., Singh, V.P., Chen, X., Chen, L., Zhang, Q., and Zhao, Y., Intra-annual Distribution of Streamflow and Individual Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities in the Dongijang River Basin, China, Water Resour. Manag., 2015, vol. 29, pp. 2677–2695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Wang, J.X., Zhang, J.Y., Li, Y., and Zhang, S.L., Variation trends of runoffs seasonal distribution of the six larger basins in China over the past 50 years, Adv. Water Sci., 2008, vol. 19, pp. 656–661.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Wilhite, D.A. and Svoboda, M.D., Drought early warning systems in the context of drought preparedness and mitigation, in Early warning systems for drought preparedness and drought management, World Meteorological Organization: Lisboa, 2000, pp. 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  25. WMO, World Meteorological Organization. The Global Climate 2001-2010: a decade of climate extremes. 2013. https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display& id=15110/

  26. Wu, J., Li, F., Zhao, Y., and Cao, R., Determination of drought limit water level of importing reservoir in inter-basin water transfer project under changing environment, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 2019, vol. 137, pp. 1529–1539. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-018-2683-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Xu, X., Li, Y., and Li, X., Evaluating the in fluence of water table depth on transpiration of two vegetation communities in a lake floodplain wetland, Hydrol. Res., 2016, vol. 47, pp. 293–312. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2016.011

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Zargar, A., Sadiq, R., Naser, B., and Khan, F.I., A review of drought indices, Environ. Rev., 2011, vol. 19, pp. 333–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Zheng, H.X. and Liu, C.M., Changes of annual runoff distribution in the headwater of the Yellow River basin, Prog. Geogr., 2003, vol. 22, pp. 585–590.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Zscheischler, J., Westra, S., Hurk, B.J.J.M. van den, Seneviratne, S.I., Ward, P.J., Pitman, A., AghaKouchak, A., Bresch, D.N., Leonard, M., Wahl, T., and Zhang, X., Future climate risk from compound events, Nature Clim. Change, 2018, vol. 8, pp. 469–477. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support for this work provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51 879 181), and the Ministry of Water Resources Special Funds for Scientific Research on Public Causes (201 401 041).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety, Tianjin University, 300072, Tianjin, PR China

    Runxiang Cao & Fawen Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resource and Hydro-power Research, 100038, Beijing, PR China

    Yong Zhao

Authors
  1. Runxiang Cao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Fawen Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yong Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Runxiang Cao, Fawen Li or Yong Zhao.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Runxiang Cao, Li, F. & Zhao, Y. Dynamic Regulation of Reservoir Drought Limit Water Level. Water Resour 48, 194–203 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0097807821020147

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0097807821020147

Keywords:

Search

Navigation