Shenglian Guo

A macro-scale and semi-distributed monthly water balance model to predict climate change impacts in China

Abstract Climatic change has great implications for hydrological cycle and water resources planning. In order to assess this impact, a macro-scale and semi-distributed monthly water balance model was proposed and developed to simulate and predict the hydrological processes. GIS techniques were used as a tool to analyze topography, river networks, land-use, human activities, vegetation and soil characteristics. The model parameters were linked to these basin characteristics by regression and optimization methods. A parameterization scheme was developed and the model parameters were estimated for each grid element. Based on the different GCM and RCM outputs, the sensitivities of hydrology and water resources for China to global warming were studied. The proposed models are capable of producing both the magnitude and timing of runoff and water resources conditions. The semi-dry regions, such as Liaohe, Haihe, Ruanhe and Huaihe River basins in north China, The runoffs of these basins are small or even zero during dry season (from Oct. to May) and are very sensitive to temperature increase and rainfall decrease. While in the basins of the humid south China like Yangtze River basin, the runoffs are perennial and the base flow normally occupies a large portion of the total runoff volume. These humid basins are less vulnerable to climate change. Results of the study also indicated that runoff is more sensitive to variation in precipitation than to increase in temperature. Climate change challenges existing water resources management practices by additional uncertainty. Integrated water resources management will enhance the potential for adaptation to change.

A two-parameter monthly water balance model and its application

Abstract A two-parameter monthly water balance model is developed. The model is used to simulate the runoff of seventy subcatchments in the Dongjiang, Ganjiang and Hanjiang Basins in the south of China. Application results show that the model efficiencies are high in both the calibration and verification periods. Comparative study of monthly water balance models indicates that the proposed two-parameter model as well as a five-parameter model performs. It is suggested that this two-parameter model can be easily and efficiently incorporated in the water resources planning program and the climate impact studies to simulate monthly runoff conditions in the humid and semi-humid regions.

A new seasonal design flood method based on bivariate joint distribution of flood magnitude and date of occurrence

Abstract Seasonal design floods which consider information on seasonal variation are very important for reservoir operation and management. The seasonal design flood method currently used in China is based on seasonal maximum (SM) samples and assumes that the seasonal design frequency is equal to the annual design frequency. Since the return period associated with annual maximum floods is taken as the standard in China, the current seasonal design flood cannot satisfy flood prevention standards. A new seasonal design flood method, which considers dates of flood occurrence and magnitudes of the peaks (runoff), was proposed and established based on copula function. The mixed von Mises distribution was selected as marginal distribution of flood occurrence dates. The Pearson Type III and exponential distributions were selected as the marginal distribution of flood magnitude for annual maximum flood series and peak-over-threshold samples, respectively. The proposed method was applied at the Geheyan Reservoir, China, and then compared with the currently used seasonal design flood methods. The case study results show that the proposed method can satisfy the flood prevention standard, and provide more information about the flood occurrence probabilities in each sub-season. The results of economic analysis show that the proposed design flood method can enhance the floodwater utilization rate and give economic benefits without lowering the annual flood protection standard. Citation Chen, L., Guo, S. L., Yan, B. W., Liu, P. & Fang, B. (2010) A new seasonal design flood method based on bivariate joint distribution of flood magnitude and date of occurrence. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(8), 1264–1280.

A reservoir flood forecasting and control system for China / Un système chinois de prévision et de contrôle de crue en barrage

Abstract Abstract Reservoirs play a vital role in flood prevention and disaster relief in China. The objectives of the project described in this study were to establish a reservoir flood forecasting and control system and to design and develop corresponding application software. This paper introduces the current reservoir flood control and operation practice with this system in China. Using modern integration technologies, an application software for this Reservoir Flood Forecasting and Control System (RFFCS) has been developed and updated since 1995. The structure of the system and its main functions, telemetric data acquisition and processing, the hydrological database, flood forecasting, and reservoir operation components are described in detail. The working environment, key technologies and standardization design are emphasized. Having been successfully applied to 212 reservoirs in China, the software has proved to be reliable and user-friendly. In its latest version, the software supports reservoir flood forecasting and flood dispatch decisions. The future research direction and the extension of the software function are also discussed.

Prediction of variability of precipitation in the Yangtze River Basin under the climate change conditions based on automated statistical downscaling

Many impact studies require climate change information at a finer resolution than that provided by general circulation models (GCMs). Therefore the outputs from GCMs have to be downscaled to obtain the finer resolution climate change scenarios. In this study, an automated statistical downscaling (ASD) regression-based approach is proposed for predicting the daily precipitation of 138 main meteorological stations in the Yangtze River basin for 2010–2099 by statistical downscaling of the outputs of general circulation model (HadCM3) under A2 and B2 scenarios. After that, the spatial–temporal changes of the amount and the extremes of predicted precipitation in the Yangtze River basin are investigated by Mann–Kendall trend test and spatial interpolation. The results showed that: (1) the amount and the change pattern of precipitation could be reasonably simulated by ASD; (2) the predicted annual precipitation will decrease in all sub-catchments during 2020s, while increase in all sub-catchments of the Yangtze River Basin during 2050s and during 2080s, respectively, under A2 scenario. However, they have mix-trend in each sub-catchment of Yangtze River basin during 2020s, but increase in all sub-catchments during 2050s and 2080s, except for Hanjiang River region during 2080s, as far as B2 scenario is concerned; and (3) the significant increasing trend of the precipitation intensity and maximum precipitation are mainly occurred in the northwest upper part and the middle part of the Yangtze River basin for the whole year and summer under both climate change scenarios and the middle of 2040–2060 can be regarded as the starting point for pattern change of precipitation maxima.

Spatial and temporal variation of extreme precipitation indices in the Yangtze River basin, China

Regional characteristics of extreme precipitation indices (EPI) of precipitation magnitude, intensity and persistence were analyzed based on a daily rainfall dataset of 135 stations during the period of 1961–2010 in the Yangtze River basin, China. The spatial distribution of temporal trends of the selected indices was regionally mapped and investigated by using non-parametric test method. Future projections of EPI changes derived from the output of general circulation model (HadCM3) under the SRES A2 and B2 emission scenarios were downscaled and analyzed. The results show that: (a) there is not a general significant increasing or decreasing trend in EPI for the Yangtze River basin based on historical recorded data; (b) the automated statistical downscaling method-based precipitation captures some spatial distribution of the EPI and the bias correction can improve the simulation results; (c) a mixed pattern of positive and negative changes is observed in most of the nine indices under both scenarios in the first half of twenty-first century, and they increase continuously in the second half of twenty-first century; and (d) the concurrent increase in the heavy rain and drought indices indicates the possibility of the sudden change from drought to water logging in the lower region of Yangtze River basin.

Estimation of reservoir flood control operation risks with considering inflow forecasting errors

A method for quantifying inflow forecasting errors and their impact on reservoir flood control operations is proposed. This approach requires the identification of the probability distributions and uncertainty transfer scheme for the inflow forecasting errors. Accordingly, the probability distributions of the errors are inferred through deducing the relationship between its standard deviation and the forecasting accuracy quantified by the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient. The traditional deterministic flood routing process is treated as a diffusion stochastic process. The diffusion coefficient is related to the forecasting accuracy, through which the forecasting errors are indirectly related to the sources of reservoir operation risks. The associated risks are derived by solving the stochastic differential equation of reservoir flood routing via the forward Euler method. The Geheyan reservoir in China is selected as a case study. The hydrological forecasting model for this basin is established and verified. The flood control operation risks in the forecast-based pre-release operation mode for different forecasting accuracies are estimated by the proposed approach. Application results show that the proposed method can provide a useful tool for reservoir operation risk estimation and management.

Comparative study of monthly inflow prediction methods for the Three Gorges Reservoir

Due to the complexity of influencing factors and the limitation of existing scientific knowledge, current monthly inflow prediction accuracy is unable to meet the requirements of various water users yet. A flow time series is usually considered as a combination of quasi-periodic signals contaminated by noise, so prediction accuracy can be improved by data preprocess. Singular spectrum analysis (SSA), as an efficient preprocessing method, is used to decompose the original inflow series into filtered series and noises. Current application of SSA only selects filtered series as model input without considering noises. This paper attempts to prove that noise may contain hydrological information and it cannot be ignored, a new method that considerers both filtered and noises series is proposed. Support vector machine (SVM), genetic programming (GP), and seasonal autoregressive (SAR) are chosen as the prediction models. Four criteria are selected to evaluate the prediction model performance: Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency, Water Balance efficiency, relative error of annual average maximum (REmax) monthly flow and relative error of annual average minimum (REmin) monthly flow. The monthly inflow data of Three Gorges Reservoir is analyzed as a case study. Main results are as following: (1) coupling with the SSA, the performance of the SVM and GP models experience a significant increase in predicting the inflow series. However, there is no significant positive change in the performance of SAR (1) models. (2) After considering noises, both modified SSA-SVM and modified SSA-GP models perform better than SSA-SVM and SSA-GP models. Results of this study indicated that the data preprocess method SSA can significantly improve prediction precision of SVM and GP models, and also proved that noises series still contains some information and has an important influence on model performance.

Bivariate Flood Frequency Analysis with Historical Information Based on Copula

AbstractFlood events consist of flood peaks and flood volumes that are mutually correlated and need to be described by multivariate analysis methods, of which the copula functions are most desirable. Until now, the multivariate flood frequency analysis methods based on copulas does not consider the historical floods or paleological information. This may underestimate or overestimate the flood quantiles or conditional probabilities corresponding to high return periods, especially when the length of gauged record data series is relatively short. In this paper, a modified inference functions for margins (MIFM) method is proposed and used to estimate the parameters of both marginal distribution and joint distribution with incorporation of historical information. The conditional probabilities of flood volumes given that the peak discharge exceeding various values were derived. The Three Gorges reservoir (TGR) in China was selected as a case study. The bivariate flood quantiles were obtained based on bivariate ...

Study of Dongting Lake area variation and its influence on water level using MODIS data / Etude de la variation de la surface du Lac Dongting et de son influence sur le niveau d’eau, grâce à des données MODIS

Abstract Abstract MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is a new generation remote sensing (RS) sensor and its applications in hydrology and water resources have attracted much attention. To overcome the problems of slow response in flood disaster monitoring based on traditional RS techniques in China, the Flood Disaster Monitoring and Assessing System (FDMAS), based on MODIS and a Geographic Information System (GIS), was designed and applied to Dongting Lake, Hunan Province, China. The storage curve of Dongting Lake for 1995 was obtained using 1:10 000 topographic map data and then a relationship between water level at the Chenglingji hydrological station and lake area was derived. A new relationship between water level and lake area was obtained by processing MODIS images of Dongting Lake from April 2002 to April 2003 and the influence of lake area variation on water level was analysed with the 1996 flood data. It was found that the water level reduction reached 0.64 m for the 1996 flood if the original lake area curve was replaced with the area curve of 2002. This illustrates that the flood water level has been considerably reduced as a result of the increased area of Dongting Lake since the Chinese Central Government’s ȁreturn land to lakeȁ policy took effect in 1998.