Author(s): Chenyu Jiang; Saiyu Yuan; Hongwu Tang; Hao Cao
Linked Author(s): Saiyu Yuan, Hongwu Tang
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Poyang Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China. It is suffering from the lengthened and advanced dry season, which causes severe environmental and ecological problems these years. The hydrodynamic processes in the lake are critical for in-depth understanding the mechanism of this problem. This study simulated the one-year hydrodynamic processes of lake streams in Poyang Lake using a state-of-the-art model, FVCOM (The Finite-Volume Coastal Ocean Model). The simulated results show a good agreement with the measured data, which verifies the capability of this model to simulate the long-term lake stream regardless of the difficulties made by the drastic variation of water level in the lake during the whole year. The results show the completely different flow patterns of lake streams in different time. Pattern “lake” occurs in the flooding period of the five rivers (from April to July) or the Yangtze River (from July to September) with a high water level. The flow velocity in the lake is low and gradually increases in the waterway to the Yangtze River. Because of the blocking effects of the Yangtze River, the flow velocity in the whole lake during the flooding season of the Yangtze River is about 40 percent smaller than the flooding season of Poyang Lake. Pattern “river”, with three evident waterways in the lake area, occurs in the dry season of Poyang Lake when the water level is low. The flow velocity is two times larger than the flooding season. All these results are beneficial to the understanding and solution of the drought problem of Poyang Lake.
Year: 2018