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The Yangtze River is one of the largest and most important rivers in the world. Over the past several decades, the natural sediment regime of the Yangtze River has been altered by the construction of dams. This paper uses multi-scale entropy analysis to ascertain the impacts of large dams on the complexity of high-frequency suspended sediment dynamics in the Yangtze River system, especially after impoundment of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD). In this study, the complexity of sediment dynamics is quantified by framing it within the context of entropy analysis of time series. Data on daily sediment loads for four stations located in the mainstem are analyzed for the past 60 years. The results indicate that dam construction has reduced the complexity of short-term (1–30 days) variation in sediment dynamics near the structures, but that complexity has actually increased farther downstream. This spatial pattern seems to reflect a filtering effect of the dams on the on the temporal pattern of sediment loads as well as decreased longitudinal connectivity of sediment transfer through the river system, resulting in downstream enhancement of the influence of local sediment inputs by tributaries on sediment dynamics. The TGD has had a substantial impact on the complexity of sediment series in the mainstem of the Yangtze River, especially after it became fully operational. This enhanced impact is attributed to the high trapping efficiency of this dam and its associated large reservoir. The sediment dynamics “signal” becomes more spatially variable after dam construction. This study demonstrates the spatial influence of dams on the high-frequency temporal complexity of sediment regimes and provides valuable information that can be used to guide environmental conservation of the Yangtze River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Much has been written on the hydrology of the Yangtze River in China, especially since the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Given the range of views in the literature on the impacts of dams and other natural and anthropogenic activities in the catchment on monthly flows, we here set out to analyse the behavior of monthly flows over the period of record 1955–2014. In the literature, the Three Gorges dam has been singled out for particular comment, mostly adverse. In this paper we analyse trend in temperature, precipitation and discharge of the Yangtze River at the monthly time scale over a period that includes the 11 years since the Three Gorges Dam came into operation. The results show that for the upper basin, there has been a marked increase in discharge in the low flow months of January to March that began abruptly in 2003 and an abrupt decrease in flow in October at the same time. Similar changes are found for discharge from the lower basin but in that case the changes have occurred gradually over the period of record. These changes are the outcome of the operation of hydroelectric and flood control dams that have been built continuously in the lower basin since 1955 while in the upper basin the building of the Three Gorges Dam began a phase of rapid dam building not seen in the lower basin. The decreased flows in the late summer and autumn are not of sufficient magnitude to cause any problems for navigation or water supply. The enhanced flows in the winter low flow period are beneficial in that they reduce the likelihood of salt water intrusions in the estuary adversely affecting the supply of freshwater to Shanghai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Understanding the way salinity distribution in an estuary reacts to external drivers (e.g., tide, fresh water discharge, dredging, etc.) is important for both water quality and water resources management in estuaries. The salinity distribution depends strongly on the geometry of an estuary, but also on the fresh water discharge that counteracts the salt intrusion. In estuaries it is notoriously hard to estimate this discharge and subsequently to predict the parameters that determine the mixing behaviour depending on it. Recently a method has been developed to predict the fresh water discharge on the basis of water level observations. In addition, predictive equations for tidal mixing have been updated and revised. In this paper, these two predictive methods are combined and subsequently applied to the Yangtze estuary under a wide variation of fresh water discharge. The predicted salt distribution appears to be in good agreement with observations. To provide insight into the optimum use of water resources (e.g., to determine the amount of fresh water discharge required to maintain a specific salt intrusion length), we further study the salt intrusion pattern under different tide and fresh water discharge conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Considerable attention has been paid to the extreme floods affecting Taihu Lake and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (China) since they have caused serious socio-economic problems past and present. To fully understand these low probability events, it is necessary to build longtime-series of flood occurrence using flood-level proxies from archaeology and sedimentology that extends the period of observation beyond that of instrumental data. Using historical stele flood markers relicts and lacustrine sediment records from Taihu Lake, this paper attempts to reconstruct the historical flood events, to compare the stele-measured flood levels with those recorded by the modern gauges, and to identify the extreme flood signals among the flood events over the past 400years. Results indicate that the lowest lake level of the 15 extreme floods by stele-records in the period 1600–1954AD was 4.07m a.s.l., equivalent to the 80th percentile of hydrological-gauged lake levels during 1921–2004AD; this comparison provides a quantitative analogue for the floods reconstructed from lake sediments. Flood signals from coarse silt–sand sediments and low-frequency magnetic susceptibility profiles captured 85% of flood years in the historical period, and five extreme flood years that were missed in the stele flood records were found. There were three flood years that were identified from the historical documents in 1766, 1875 and 1882AD, respectively, when lake-flood levels were estimated at 4.0–4.1m, 4.1–4.2m and 4.13–4.23m, respectively. Spectral analysis was used to identify return periods from the three time series of the stele flood records, grain flood index and magnetic flood index, respectively; these analyses indicated some synchronous patterns and showed common return periods of 90–102years, 60–62years and 42–44years. To test if the historical extreme floods have statistical relationships with climate variability, a two-variables-conditional test following Poisson’s distribution was applied: the estimated probabilities of 0.17–0.20 between a proxy of the Pacific Decadal Osculation (PDO) and the flood events were obtained. These estimates indicate that the hypothesis that the two variables have significant correlations can be accepted, suggesting that the Taihu historical extreme floods were significantly linked with the changes in the Pacific monsoon and summer precipitation. This study demonstrate the possibility of reconstructing past extreme floods where gauge data are not available and has relevance to the prediction of future extreme floods which will have possible disastrous socio-economic impacts on the Taihu catchment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: After the Yangtze River was closed by the Three Gorges Project (TGP) in 2003, erosion occurred from the dam site to the river mouth, especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. However, in some local areas of Chenglingji reach which holds the key position for flood management, there is actually deposition in contrast to the expected erosion. In this paper, a one dimensional mathematical model of the river network with sediment transport is used as the tool to simulate flow and fluvial processes. The calculation domain is from Yichang, which is downstream of the dam, to Hankou, the controlling node of flood management, 694km long in total. The model is calibrated based on the field data of hydrology and sediment transport during the period from October 2003 to October 2008. Then the model is utilized to simulate the erosion and deposition of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the next two decades, and produce the results of a new river channel after river bed deformation occurs. The typical flood processes of 1954 and 1998 in the Yangtze River basin are used to check the flood management scheme for the research area, and results show that water storage of Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) and a flood diversion program downstream of the Yangtze River should be taken into consideration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Grey relational method (GRM) has emerged in recent years as a new tool to deal with problems of small samples and insufficient information. Inexact data, short sample and incomplete hydrological data in water research are very commonly encountered. Statistical, fuzzy set and rough set theories have been applied to deal with uncertainty problems in hydrology. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for grey relational degree and apply it to water environment quality evaluation of the Han Jiang River, one of the major branches of the Yangtze River in China. Our proposed method possesses some essential and desirable properties which ensure that translational properties of relational degree do not exist and it will give a more precise and finer grading of the overall water quality. Our empirical applications of GRM have demonstrated that GRM is a useful tool for analysis of inexact data, short sample and incomplete hydrological data. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Alpine meadows in the upper catchments of the Yangtze River, China provide critical amounts of water to maintain regional water resources, but little is known about the hydrological processes in these alpine ecosystems. In this paper, we analyzed the sources of precipitation in an alpine meadow using the deuterium excess in rain, fog, soil water, shallow groundwater and stream water. Rain and fog in the alpine meadow had high deuterium excess, 35‰ and 38‰ compared to 10‰ of precipitation brought by monsoon at lower elevation. These high values suggested that a large part of rain at the alpine meadow derived from secondarily evaporated water and that fog derived from the evaporated water produced shortly after rain events. However, averaged evaporation rate calculated by an isotopic mass balance model of soil water was only 0.26mm/d, about 3.6% of the rainfall and 7.57‰ of the average deuterium excess value of rain. The contribution from evaporated water to precipitation in the alpine meadow therefore had to be mainly from sub-alpine vegetations in the region. This eco-hydrological relation between sub-alpine and alpine ecosystems can partly explain the high water yield of the alpine meadow and should be considered for regional resource management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Annual runoff and annual suspended sediment loads of hydrological gauging stations along the mainstream of the Yangtze River basin (Pingshan station, Yichang station, Hankou station and Datong station) and main tributaries (Beipei station in Jialingjiang River, Wulong station in Wujiang River and Huangzhuang station in Hanjiang River) were analyzed with the help of Mann–Kendall trend analysis and linear regression analysis. Research results indicate that (1) changing patterns of runoff and sediment loads are different in different parts of the Yangtze River basin. No significant trend is detected for annual runoff at all stations at >95% confidence level. Changes of sediment loads, however, demonstrate different pictures in the Yangtze River basin. The sediment loads are in increasing trend in Pingshan station- the most upstream station on the Yangtze River basin (this increasing trend is significant at >95% confidence level after about 1990), but are in decreasing trend at other stations (including stations in the tributaries studied in this paper). This decreasing trend becomes more obvious from Yichang station to Datong station. (2) Water reservoirs exerted more influences on changes of sediment loads than on runoff, which is the main reason for the decreasing trend of sediment loads found in most stations. (3) Influences of water reservoirs on sediment loads are more obvious in the tributaries than in the mainstream of the Yangtze River basin, while in the mainstream the variation patterns of sediment loads are determined by multiple factors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]