Environmental flows and its evaluation of restoration effect based on LEDESS model in Yellow River Delta wetlands |
| |
Authors: | Xingong Wang Yu Lian Chong Huang Xiaojun Wang Ruiling Wang Kai Shan Bas Pedroli Michiel van Eupen Amgad ElMahdi Mahtab Ali |
| |
Institution: | (1) Yellow River Basin Water Resources Protection Bureau, Zhengzhou, 450004, China;(2) Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China;(3) State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Nanjing, 210029, China;(4) Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve Administration Bureau, Shandong Province, Dongying, 257091, China;(5) Alterra Wageningen UR, Wageningen, Netherlands;(6) Urban Water Unit Manager, Climate and Water Division, Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Melbourne, Australia;(7) Water Division, Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Perth, Australia;(8) Research Centre for Climate Change, Ministry of Water Resources, No. 225 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China; |
| |
Abstract: | Due to freshwater supplement scarcity and heavy human activities, the fresh water wetland ecosystem in Yellow River Delta
is facing disintegrated deterioration, and it is seriously affecting the health of the Yellow River ecosystem. This paper
identifies the restoration objectives of wetland aiming to protect ecological and economic values and development as well
as the water resources of the Yellow River. The hydraulic and groundwater coupling model and Landscape Ecological Decision
and Evaluation Support System (LEDESS) of the Yellow River Delta were established to calculate environmental flows of degraded
wetlands. LEDESS is a computer-based model developed and used to assess and evaluate the effects of land-use changes on nature.
In this study, LEDESS is used to assess and evaluate the ecological effects and the restoration possibilities considering
several environmental flows’ supplement scenarios. This included the changes of suitable habitat conditions and its ecological
carrying capacities for indicator species, e.g., Red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis), Oriental stork (Ciconia boyciana), and Saunder’s gull (Larus relictus), and changing of ecological patterns. The results showed that replenishing fresh water to wetlands is one of the effective
adaptive measures to mitigate wetland degradation and improve its habitat quality and carrying capacities. This study indicated
that landscape ecology approach is not only considered as a good way to solve complex problems in ecosystem management but
also can be used to decide on the environmental flows and assess its ecological effects in large-scale wetland rehabilitation.
This integrated method could make environmental flows estimated and assessment more rational than the results of hydrologic
methods. It could assist decision makers to “see” the ecological effects after water supplementing and so alleviate the contradictions
between environmental flows and production water demands, and can facilitate the implementation of environmental flows in
most countries with water resources shortage. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|