ZHANG Ai-jing 1, 2, DONG Zhe-ren 1, ZHAO Jin-yong 1, WANG Jun-na 1 (1. China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China; 2. Administration of South-to-North Water Dirision Middle Route Project, Beijing 100038, China)

Abstract: The Indicators of Hydrological Alteration (IHA) that includes five flow components (discharge, frequency, timing, duration and rate of change) with great ecological significance are adopted to estimate the effects of the integrated water regulation and water-sediment regulation of the Yellow River on the eco-hydrology of the river estuary. The demands for environmental flows and satisfaction degree of current hydrological regime were discussed. The results indicate that estuarine hydrologic regime has been improved effectively due to the integrated water regulation and water-sediment regulation. While the rate of change decreased, the flood pulse process disappeared and the hydrologic process became flat. The hydrological regime is able to meet the appropriate ecological flows during the dry period and that of the flood period could achieve the river channel scouring except for the lack of flood pulse process. While, during April to June the hydrological processes are incapable of meeting the ecological flows and short of the flow pulsing for fish reproduction.

Key words: the integrated water regulation, water and sediment regulation, hydrological regime, Indicators of Hydrological Alteration, ecological response, environmental flows

Published in: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, Vol. 44, No. 8, 2013