Abstract
Environmental flow (Eflow) allocations of reservoir-river systems do not adequately address the connections between reservoir inflows, releases, and corresponding downstream river water quality rendering water resources management difficult. The study integrated the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for reservoir inflows estimation and corresponding releases with Global Environmental Flow Calculator (GEFC) for Eflows allocations to simulate the resulting Dissolved Oxygen (DO) of the downstream river stretch using QUAL2K. The study considered various plausible scenarios of inflows (10 to 20% reduction), pollution scenarios of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) (0 to 100% treatment) for arriving drains by altering headwaters DO (4 to 8 mg/l). Eflow water quality charts were developed for the regulation of reservoir downstream river water quality for Bhadra river in India as case study. The study revealed that by maintaining the headwater DO in conjunction with BOD treatment of drains and with sufficient Eflow allocation, downstream river water quality can be improved. By maintaining a headwater DO of 7 mg/l with BOD treatment of drains of 25% and by providing Eflow allocation of 40.12 m3/s with class D, the Bhadravathi river stretch has shown an improved river water quality with about 6.65 mg/l of average DO.
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Funding
The research presented in this study was funded by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Department of Science & Technology, TMD (Energy, Water & Others), Water Technology Initiative, Project no. DST/TMD-EWO/WTI/2K19/EWFH/2019/306. The authors sincerely thank Dr. P. Somasekhar Rao, Technical Director at the Advanced Centre for Integrated Water Resources Management (ACIWRM), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, for providing Tunga-Bhadra data.
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Rehana Shaik and Mummidivarapu Satish Kumar contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Mummidivarapu Satish Kumar and P. N. Chandi Priya. All the authors contributed to writing of the paper. Rehana Shaik, and Shailesh Kumar Singh contributed to research idea and supervised the research. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Kumar, M.S., Priya, P.N.C., Shaik, R. et al. Environmental Flows Allocation for a Tropical Reservoir System by Integration of Water Quantity (SWAT) and Quality (GEFC, QUAL2K) Models. Water Resour Manage 37, 113–133 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-022-03358-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-022-03358-z