Data availability statement:
The data that support the findings of this study are available from
Songliao Water Resources Commission, Ministry of Water Resources, China.
Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used
under license for this study. Data are available from the authors with
the permission of Songliao Water Resources Commission, Ministry of Water
Resources, China.
Impact of reservoir on downstream runoff and baseflow recession
characteristics: a case study of Chaersen Reservoir in Northeast China
Abstract: The number of reservoirs in the world is increasing
year by year, which will inevitably affect the downstream runoff and
baseflow recession characteristics. In this paper, the impact of
Chaersen Reservoir (Northeast China) on downstream runoff and baseflow
recession characteristics is studied using a pre‑post comparison method,
and the influence of climate change is excluded using two upstream
sub-watersheds as control basins. In addition, the impact mechanism of
the reservoir is further explored. The results show that the increased
direct and indirect water consumption after the construction of the
reservoir results in a 14% reduction in the average streamflow of the
downstream Zhenxi Station. At the same time, the construction of the
reservoir causes the baseflow at the recession stage to increase by a
relatively constant value (about 1m3/s), which leads
the log(|dQ /dt |) vs. log(Q )
points at the low‑flow stage to shift to the right. This eventually
results in a decrease in the recession coefficient a by about
60% and an increase of b by about 24%. The
log(|dQ /dt |) vs. log(Q ) scatter
of the recession process after adding a constant flow is no longer in a
strict linear relationship. And the master recession curve obtained by
the traditional linear parameterization method is only an average
approximation, which will overestimate the streamflow in the middle
recession stage and underestimate the streamflow in the late stage.
Keywords: Impact of reservoir; Runoff; Baseflow recession
characteristic; Master recession curve; Storage‑discharge relationship;
Mechanism; log(|dQ /dt |) vs.
log(Q ); Nonlinear relationship.