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The influence of the Three Gorges Reservoir regulation on a typical tributary heat budget

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Abstract

Reservoir regulation and local climate both affect the heat budget of tributary bay. It is difficult for traditional methods to identify the influence of different factors on heat budget quantitatively. In this paper, for analysis of the control mechanisms of the heat budget of a large reservoir tributary, the water temperature distribution, and heat budget processes of the Meixi River, a typical tributary to the Three Gorges Reservoir was measured, and a new method was used to calculate the heat content composition of the tributary bay and identify the key factor of the heat balance. The result shows significant variation in the spatial and temporal distributions of water temperatures in the Meixi River, ranging from 12.4 to 28.9 °C on the surface and 12.0 to 24.4 °C at the bottom. The total heat exchange across the air–water interface that ranges from 0.1 to 6% of the budget is not the primary control factor of the annual tributary heat budget. Rather, the change in water depth produced by regulation of the Three Gorges Reservoir is the primary control factor of the tributary heat budget in the whole year, which ranges from 72 to 99% of the budget. The water temperature difference between the main stream and tributary is the not key factor of the heat budget, which ranges from 0.1 to 28% of the heat budget.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments which greatly improve the manuscript. The study was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2017YFC0505305), the Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment in China (2017ZX07301006005), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51509066, 91647208, 51679258 and 91547109), Open Research Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (SKL2016ZY04, SKL2018ZY04) and Applied Basic Research Program of Hebei Province (14964206D-3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China

    Yao Cheng, Yuchun Wang & Huaidong Zhou

  2. College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan, China

    Yao Cheng & Chenghua Dang

Authors
  1. Yao Cheng
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  2. Yuchun Wang
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  3. Huaidong Zhou
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  4. Chenghua Dang
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Correspondence to Yao Cheng.

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This article is a part of a Topical Collection in Environmental Earth Sciences on Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, guest edited by Drs. Yanqing Lian, Walton Kelly, and Fulin Li.

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Cheng, Y., Wang, Y., Zhou, H. et al. The influence of the Three Gorges Reservoir regulation on a typical tributary heat budget. Environ Earth Sci 77, 764 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7940-2

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