2 Study area
The Jingjiang River is approximately 340 km long, flowing from Zhicheng
to the mouth of Dongting Lake located in Chenglingji, and it is divided
into two reaches. The upper Jingjiang extends from the Zhicheng reach to
Ouchikou, with a lightly curved braided river flowing over 171.5 km,
while the lower Jingjiang starts at Ouchikou and ends at Chenglingji,
with a typical meandering pattern approximately 175.7 km long (Fig. 1).
In this paper, Zhicheng, Shashi, Jianli and Luoshan hydrological
stations are selected to analyze the channel connectivity of the
Jingjiang River.
The Gezhouba Water Conservancy Project is located 38 km downstream of
the TGD and 64 km upstream of the Zhicheng hydrological station, and
this project is the first large-scale run-of-river hydropower station on
the Yangtze River with low-head and high flow. In addition, the
impoundment of the TGD was finished successfully in 2003, and it is the
largest water conservancy project in the world, with a total storage
capacity of 39.3 billion m3.