Ecological Operation Objectives for Four Major Chinese Carps Spawning in the Xijiang River

¹ The Pearl River Hydraulic Research Institute, Guangzhou 510611, Guangdong Province, China.
² Key Laboratory of the Pearl River Estuarine Dynamics and Associated Process Regulation, Ministry of Water Resources, Guangzhou 510611, Guangdong Province, China.

^* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-20-87117932; fax: +86-20-38491316. E-mail address: xiehehai@gmail.com

Abstract

The river basin cascade development has prominent influence on water ecology for breeding of four major Chinese carps, and the determination of ecological operation objectives is an important basic work to carry out the ecological operation. This study determines the main control indexes of reservoir operation by analysing the relationships between larval population of Xijiang Dongta spawning ground and impact indexes like water temperature, flood process and flow velocity. Taking peak flow, initial discharge, flow rising range, daily increasing rate of flow and duration of water level rising of the spawning ground as the control indexes, the target flow process of reservoir ecological operation can be determined. Furthermore, the drifting velocity of fish eggs is used as the test index to control the section flow in the scheduling river reach. The proposed method is applied to the ecological operation of Dongta spawning ground, and the target flow processes of ecological operation under low, medium and high flow levels are obtained.