Elsevier

Ecological Informatics

Volume 6, Issue 6, November 2011, Pages 407-413
Ecological Informatics

Development and application of a hybrid model to analyze spatial distribution of macroinvertebrates under flow regulation in the Lijiang River

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2011.08.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Alteration of natural flow regime due to reservoir operation imposes serious impacts on the aquatic ecosystem. To investigate the effects on the spatial distribution of macroinvertebrates, this study developed a hybrid ecohydraulics model which integrated a two-dimensional water quality module with an artificial neural network (ANN) based macroinvertebrate habitat module. The developed model was applied to a compound channel in the middle of the Lijiang River, where the flow in dry season has been largely modified by the Qingshitan Reservoir in the upstream. Semisulcospira amurensis (S. amurensis) which is the dominant macroinvertebrate species in the whole river basin was studied. The simulation and comparison results indicate that in general the flow regulation in dry season has negative impacts on the distribution of S. amurensis. The distribution area decreases, and in particular it becomes seriously fragmented. The model can be used through scenario analyses to adjust reservoir operation, so as to improve river management for ecological interest. In addition, the hybrid approach proposed in the paper has great potentials in studying this type of problems.

Highlights

► A hybrid model for macroinvertebrates presence is developed. ► Quantitatively assess impact of reservoir operation on macroinvertebrates dynamic. ► Case study showed increase of discharge in dry season is negative to S. amurensis. ► The hybrid approach is applicable for other aquatic organisms.

Introduction

Modification of natural flow regime for human consumption, agricultural production and power generation has dramatic effects on aquatic biota distribution due to altering water quality and habitat connectivity, disrupting sediment transport and nutrient cycling, and blocking fish and invertebrate movements (Dynesius and Nilsson, 1994, Santucci et al., 2005). In the last decades, great efforts have been made to better understand the mechanisms between the spatial structure of aquatic species and the related hydro-environmental conditions. The effects of small experimental floods on the differential mortality of native and exotic riparian trees have been studied on the Bill Williams River (Mouton et al., 2007, Shafroth et al., 2010), and an integrated ecohydraulics model was developed to simulate and assess ecological effects of physical habitat changes at four different flow rates in the Zwalm River in northern Belgium (Mouton et al., 2007). Relationships between colonially-nesting water birds reproductive performance and flow variability were quantified in the Murray River in south-eastern Australia (Leslie, 2001).

Macroinvertebrates play a central role in river ecosystems. They uptake detritus and algae and provide food to water-bird and fish. Great attentions had been paid to the dynamics of macroinvertebrate. One important aspect is to understand the relationships between their distribution and flow regimes. Zigler et al. (2008) used physical and hydraulic factors to predict the distribution of freshwater mussels in a reach of the upper Mississippi River and suggested that seasonal droughts and floods were important in structuring mussel distributions. Stubbington et al. (2009) presented a conceptual model of the processes influencing benthic and hyporheic invertebrates under low-flow conditions and highlighted the potential importance of surface water and hyporheic zone linkages to riverine invertebrate communities under a range of flow conditions. James and Suren (2009) assessed the impacts of low flows on invertebrates through six experimental channels located in a lowland stream in the Kaiapoi River in New Zealand and concluded that invertebrates were resistant to the experimental flow reduction. Plenty of studies on macroinvertebrate community under different rivers showed that flow regulation had great effects on macroinvertebrate structure and distribution (Cortes et al., 2002, Dewson et al., 2007, Dunbar et al., 2010, Grzybkowska et al., 1996, Lind et al., 2007, McKay and King, 2006, Sheldon and Thoms, 2006).

However, these studies are mainly qualitative rather than quantitative. In recent years, with a growing awareness of the value of natural ecosystems, there are strong demands to quantitatively investigate other than qualitatively assess the impacts of flow regulation, so as to seek for practical remediation measures (Nagaya et al., 2008, Tollefson, 2008). Merigoux et al. (2009) combined the hydraulic preferences for 66 invertebrate taxa with a statistical habitat model (FSTress) to predict the effects of minimum flow restoration on invertebrate abundances in two bypassed sections of the Rhone River and expected that the overall invertebrate diversity was to increase.

This research took a compound channel of the Lijiang River as the study case, and aimed at developing a hybrid macroinvertebrate habitat model to quantitatively assess the impact of upstream reservoir operation on the distribution of macroinvertebrates. The model integrated a two-dimensional water quality module with a species presence module. The integrated model simulated water temperature, dissolved oxygen, water depth, flow velocity, and then predicted consequentially the presence of S. amurensis. Field survey records collected during 2009–2010 were used for model calibration and verification. Both realistic and hypothesized scenarios were analyzed and compared to provide suggestions to adjust the flow regulation for ecological concerns.

Section snippets

Study area

The study focused on a compound channel in the middle reach of Lijiang River, which is located in the southwest China (Fig. 1). Due to the special Karst landscape and the strong seasonality of rainfall, the discharges in the channel (gauged at the Yangshuo hydrological station) vary from 12 m3/s to 8000 m3/s, and the annual average is about 120 m3/s. During dry season from October to next March, there is a serious problem of water-deficiency, which imposes great threats to the local water supply

Model developments

The developed model consisted of a two-dimensional water quality module and a macroinvertebrate presence module based on artificial neural networks (ANN) approach. The water quality module provides the external driving forces to the macroinvertebrates module.

Results of scenario analyses

The validated hybrid model was used to analyze the distribution of S. amurensis under the designed discharge of 60 m3/s in dry season. Fig. 4 presented the simulated flow velocity, water depth, WT and DO. Compared to the current condition of 28 m3/s, the averaged water depth and flow velocity have an obvious increase when discharge is 60 m3/s. Due to the increase of water level, the shallow area drops from 5.12 × 105 m2 to 4.69 × 105 m2. Regarding water temperature and dissolved oxygen, the difference

Discussions

This paper developed a hybrid model that integrates a two-dimensional water quality module and an ANN based macroinvertebrate presence module. The model aimed at quantitatively investigating the impacts of reservoir operations on the downstream macroinvertebrate dynamics.

The developed model was applied to a compound reach in the middle of Lijiang River, where the flow is seriously altered by the upstream Qingshitan Reservoir. Five factors were used to construct the S. amurensis presence model.

Acknowledgments

The authors were grateful to the funding from National Basic Research Program 973 (No. 2010CB429004), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50879086) and the Chutian Scholarship (KJ2010B002).

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