The relationship between the Ili River streamflow and operation modes of the reservoirs in the upper river basin
О связи между водностью трансграничной реки Или и режимами работы водохранилищ в верхней части бассейна
Abayev N.N.
2022Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sovremennye Problemy Distantsionnogo Zondirovaniya Zemli iz Kosmosa
2022#19Issue 1217 - 225 pp.
The work considers the results of a hydrological monitoring of the large Central Asian transboundary Ili River basin (China–Kazakhstan), and its territories adjacent to Kazakhstan. The dynamics of Chinese regional hydroelectric power plants located in the Ili River basin (Kapchagayskoye on the Tekes River and Zharyntayskoye on the Kash River), for the period 2011–2021 was reconstructed based on Landsat-7, -8 and Sentinel-2A images. These hydroelectric power plants operate in an energy mode. Seasonal water accumulation takes place in the spring-summer period, whereas water discharge occurs in the cold season. It can be seen that calendar dates of reservoirs water accumulation can act as a hydrological parameter easily recorded by satellites, reflecting the outflow of the season. The river streamflow and the rate of seasonal water storage of the reservoirs on a time scale of 1–3 months in the period May–August have a very high correlation. The value of the Pearson correlation coefficient reaches 0.88. At the same time, it is possible to diagnose the river streamflow, both for the whole season and for individual months. This confirms the assumption about the key role of the river streamflow in the withdrawal of water from the river runoff for seasonal accumulation of reservoirs in China. In seasons when the level of the annual streamflow of the Ile River is close to the average or above it, the reservoirs of the hydroelectric power station are almost filled. According to the study, about 2.5 km3 is withdrawn from the river flow for this purpose. In low-water seasons, the volume of water withdrawal can decrease to 1.3 km3 (2014). Satellite monitoring of the reservoirs operation in the Chinese sector of the Ili River basin can become an important source of information for making the streamflow forecasts of the river within the framework of the national hydrometeorological service of Kazakhstan (RSE Kazhydromet), since operational hydrological information from the territory of Xinjiang, China, is extremely limited.
China , Ili River basin , Ili River discharge , remote sensing , reservoir seasonal accumulation mode , reservoir’s water mirror , satellite data , Xinjiang
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RSE Kazhydromet, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Institute of Information and Computing Technology, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan
RSE Kazhydromet
Institute of Information and Computing Technology
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