LI Qian 1, LI Chong 1, 2, LUO Hui-huang 1

1. Department of Water Environment, IWHR, Beijing 100038, China
2. China Three Gorges Corporation, Beijing 100038, China

Abstract: Temperature is one of the most important environmental factors that in fluence fish growth rates of metabolism and development. The change of the water temperature has a great impact on the whole fish life cycle, especially on the reproduction period. After the construction of the cascade hydropower station in the lower reaches of Jinshajiang River, release of the low temperature water will change the water temperature of the natural downstream watercourse. National nature reserve of rare and endemic fish in the Yangtze River upstream area, lying in the 1.8 km downriver from the cascade hydropower station of Jinshajiang River, has 68 kinds of rare and endemic fish such as Acipenser dabryanus, Myxocyprinusasiaticus, Procyprisrabaudi, Coreiusguichenoti etc. Under the circumstances of the lack of biological information, according to the record of many years’ water temperature of Pingshan station, this paper adopts the ranges of variability approach method in ecological hydrology to calculate the appropriate ecological water temperature of each month, conducts the reliability test using the appropriate water temperature range of 17 kinds of fish recorded in documents in the reserve and finally confirms the ecological target water temperature.

Key words: ecological target water temperature, the fish nature reserve, RVA method, the upper reaches of the Yangtze River

Published in: Journal of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (Vol. 10 No. 2, 2012)