Abstract
Water storage changes in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) cause large mass variations on the Earth's surface, which inevitably influences crustal stability. The quantitative relationship between the water storage changes in the TGR and nearby crustal deformation has not been thoroughly investigated; as a result, the impacts caused by water loading changes have not been fully understood. In this study, we apply multi-channel singular spectrum analysis (M-SSA) to the time series of water level data and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observed displacements from 2010 to 2018 and extract their seasonal variations. Results show that the seasonal displacements at three GNSS stations have amplitudes of 4–9 mm in the vertical direction and ~ 2 mm in the horizontal direction, while seasonal water level changes have an amplitude of ~ 28.632 ± 2.401 m. We find that seasonal vertical displacements at the three GNSS stations are anti-correlated with the seasonal water level change, the correlation coefficients (CC) can be as high as −0.83. Based on this finding, we propose linear models to predict GNSS stations' displacement from water level observations. We also forward-model the water storage-induced crustal displacements using the elastic Green's function method. Both the linear model and the elastic Green's function method yield displacement results consistent with the observed GNSS displacements. The results show that the water storage changes in the TGR contribute 32.8%, 8.8%, and 13.5% to the detrended coordinate variations at the three GNSS stations. The crustal uplift near the dam can be as large as ~ −40 mm under an extreme situation when the water level rises from 145 to 175 m. Analysis of the correlation between water level fluctuation and seismicity suggests that the earthquakes in stages 1 and 3 of TGR impoundment were likely associated with the water level changes and appeared to respond nearly instantaneously to the increasing water level, suggesting the water storage changes in the TGR has influenced the stability of the nearby crust. This study provides a new perspective toward understanding the impacts of the TGR on the nearby environment.
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Availability of Data and Material
The water level data used in this paper can be accessed at http://www.cjw.gov.cn/. The GNSS data are available at http://www.cgps.ac.cn/. The surface mass loading data are calculated and provided by http://massloading.net/. The SRTM DEM v4.1 data can be freely accessed at https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/. The seismicity data can be accessed at https://www.cenc.ac.cn/. The data that support the findings of this study are available upon request to Dr. Bao Zhang (sggzb@whu.edu.cn).
Code Availability
The codes that support the findings of this study are available upon request to Dr. Bao Zhang (sggzb@whu.edu.cn).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Linsong Wang for providing the water level data, Rong Huang for providing the earthquake catalog data, the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC) for providing the GNSS data, the International Mass Loading Service for providing the surface mass loading data (http://massloading.net/), the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Center (GES DISC) for providing the SRTM DEM v4.1 data (https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/). We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive suggestions that help to improve the manuscript substantially. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42074035; 41704004), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2042020kf0009), and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2020GXNSFBA297145).
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42074035; 41704004), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2042020kf0009), and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2020GXNSFBA297145).
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YL and BZ together designed the research and proposed the solutions; YL performed the research and wrote the paper; YL and BZ helped process and analyze data; BZ and YY revised the paper; JL helped in discussion and editing.
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Lai, Y., Zhang, B., Yao, Y. et al. Quantitatively Analyzing the Impacts of Seasonal Water Storage Changes in the Three Gorges Reservoir on Nearby Crust. Pure Appl. Geophys. 179, 817–831 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-021-02928-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-021-02928-3