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2012 International Conference on Modern Hydraulic Engineering

The Calculation of River Ecological Flow for the Liao Basin

in China
CHEN Minjiana,c, WANG Gaoxub,c, FENG Hualib,c, WANG Liqunb,c, a*
a,

China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China
b,
Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Nanjing,210029, China
c,
State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Nanjing, 210029, China

Abstract
Unreasonable development of water resources have caused dying out of rivers, declines of underground water levels
and the dying out of aquatic biology etc in the Liao basin of China. Therefore, the insurance of ecological water for
rivers have become an important part of the rehabilitation of the aquatic ecology. Morphological methods based on
the morphological and hydrological characteristics of the river are used to calculate minimum river flows that will
sustain the low-flow channel of the river. Fish habitat methods, depending on the aquatic biological and hydrological
characteristics of the river when the precondition of low-flow channel exists, are used to calculate appropriate
ecological flows that will protect the ecological health of the rivers. The results of the calculation indicates that in the
whole Liao River, the ratio of the minimum river flow to the mean annual natural flow is 5-13%, and from the
upstream to downstream, the (minimum ecological flow) ratio gradually decreases; its found that ratios of the
appropriate ecological flow to the mean annual natural flow is 19-37%. The method fits the cross-section where the
relation of water level-discharge and discharge-velocity is steady, but it doesnt fit the section which is influenced by
river backwater jacking and ocean tide.

2012
2011 Published
Published by
byElsevier
ElsevierLtd.
Ltd.Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Society for Resources,
Environment and Engineering
Keywords: ecological flow; morphology; fish habitat method; appropriate velocity; Liao Basin

1. Introduction
Recently, because of the unreasonable development of water and soil resources, the degradation of

* Corresponding author. WANG Gaoxu, Tel.: +86-25-85828523; fax: +86-25-85828555.

E-mail address: gxwang@nhri.cn

1877-7058 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Society for Resources, Environment and Engineering
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.01.796

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ecosystem and environments in the basin of Liao has become more and more severe. In the region of
West Liao, the flow of the river stops frequently and the water table is descending acutely. As a result,
desert vegetation that relies upon groundwater for survival has begun to die, causing potential large scale
ecological devastation. The midstream and downstream region of the Liao basin, where the industry and
agriculture are developing rapidly, and the population density is high, is the main cause of water-shortage
in the region. This region of the Liao basin is the main region in China where the groundwater is overpumped. The riverbed is often completely dry, and subsidence is becoming a major issue in the region.
The amount of sewage is large, and the pollution is severe and is highly centralized. In addition, the
decrease of surface runoff of the river amplifies the pollution problem.
The unreasonable development of water resources and the neglect of ecological flow in the Liao basin
are the main causes of the problems facing the ecological environment. Therefore, according to the
problems of ecosystem and environment caused by the development of water resource in Songhua & Liao
basin, calculating the ecological flow in Liao basin can provide conditions of reasonable collocation of
water resource for basin agency.
2. The connotation of ecological flow
Peoples unreasonable development of water resource has caused sharp decrease of water quantity,
worsening of water quality, and falling down of functions of the aquatic ecological system. Therefore, the
problem of ecological flow for river, lake and so on, has been paid more attention in recent years[1-3].
The destruction of ecosystem is a gradual changing process, and along with the continual accumulation of
various devastating energies, the ecosystem approaches an abruptly -changing state, causing ecocide
or the obvious loss of its service functions. In the course of ecosystem destroyed, there are two most key
states: one is the ecological chain being destroyed, and species decreasing in large numbers, and even
extinction. The other is the water itself disappearing.
The purpose of the research of ecological flow is to avoid the emergence of the ecocide mentioned
above. Research on the water condition of critical states needs to be done. Two critical points correspond
to the abruptly changing states: one is the condition of the water itself, corresponding to the minimum
ecological flow; and the other is integrality of species, corresponding to appropriate ecological flow[4].
The minimum ecological flow (discharge) refers to the water condition when the investigated water is on
the verge of critical states (such as flow-breaking and drying-up). Its physical meaning is taking the
minimum discharge for maintaining river scale as large as possible, which means that when the discharge
turns out to bigger than the minimum ecological flow, river scale apparently doesnt changes large. But
river scale reduces quickly when river flow lower than minimum ecological flow. The appropriate
ecological flow refers to the minimum flow (discharge) for maintaining the basic integrality of aquatic
species[5]; that is, the flow can maintain the healthy breeding conditions and proper scale for aquatic
species, and assure their basic integrality.
2. The method for calculating the ecological flow
2.1 The morphological method
The morphological method is the method used to calculate the minimum ecological flow. The
morphological character of river L and the hydrological character Q have a close relation. The
morphological factors such as the shape of river section, the wetted perimeter, and the width of water
surface etc are influenced by river flows. Therefore, by taking the wetted perimeter to reflect the river
scale, and through establishing the relation of wetted perimeter and flows, we can determine the minimum

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ecological flow.
1.0

l/L

Range

B
Critic

Minimu
m flow

a
l

q/Q 1.0

Fig 1. calculation of minimum flow

In the course of specific calculation, first, choose hydrometric station, through analyzing the normal
observed hydrological data, such as information of large section of the river and flow-stage relation. We
can plot the relation curves between flows and the wetted perimeter on each year in the same map, and
then proceed to synthetically analyze the calculation results of each year. In figure 1, the X-axis
represents the proportion of flow (q/Q), and q is observed flow and Q is mean annual natural flow. The Yaxis represents the proportion of the wetted perimeter (l/L), l is the wetted perimeter corresponding to
observed flow and L is the wetted perimeter corresponding to normal natural annual flow. A great deal of
the calculation point data shows that at the relative flow E, the relation curve between relative flow and
the scale of the riverway appears as an obvious turn (figure 1). Because of the scour and fill of the
riverway, but the scales of the riverway corresponding to the inflexion of each year are different (range
from A to B), but the relative flow is basically unchangeable. Therefore, we can conclude that the flow E
is the critical point for river survival. When the flow is larger than E, the river scale changes slightly,
when the flow is smaller than E, the river scale decreases rapidly to and disappears. So, we determine E
as the minimum ecological flow of the section.
2.2 Fish Habitat Method
The fish habitat method is used to calculate appropriate ecological flow. Fish is the senior consumer in
the aquatic food net, and also the top species in aquatic ecosystem. The fish community is composed of
many different species of fishes, including herbivorous, omnivorous, planktotrophic fish and so on. The
many research show that in the aquatic ecosystem, the physical and chemical factors, phytoplankton, and
zooplankton have had an impact on fish composition and population, which is called the down-up effect.
Meanwhile, as the top species in the freshwater ecosystem, fish harvesting not only causes the change of
the composition and density of species on lower nutrient classes, but also causes changes in the junior
productivity and nutrient situation, which is called the up-down effect. Therefore, the change of the
structure of the fish community can directly and indirectly reflect the whole change of the aquatic
community and the water quality. So, it is reasonable for us to select fish to calculate the appropriate
ecological flow.
The fish habitat method refers to the method of taking the appropriate velocity for fish to spawn and
propagate, and establishing the relation between appropriate velocity and relative flow to determine the
appropriate ecological flow. The water velocity in the river is an important environmental factor to enable

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fish to spawn naturally. It influences other water quality parameters like dissolved oxygen in water. Under
the natural conditions, a certain velocity corresponds to a certain flow and a certain surface width and a
water depth etc. The appropriate ecological flow referred to in this article is from the point of view of fish
propagation to research the necessary velocity of water in the river for fish to spawn. Therefore, we can
select the minimum velocity for fish to live and propagate naturally to determine the appropriate
ecological flow. According to the book Freshwater Pisciculture in China, mainly edited by
Academician Liu Jiankang in 1992[6], under the natural conditions, the gonads of herring, chub and other
fish can develop in a still water environment, but there is a certain velocity required to enable fish to
spawn. According to calculations based on the observed data[7], along with the result of foreign research
on fish ecology, the appropriate velocity for most fish to spawn is about 0.3~0.4m/s.
The flowing stream in the riverway is influenced by shape of the section, slope, roughness coefficient,
water depth, bend, wind, air pressure and tide, and describes the state of turbulent flow; and that the
velocity at any point in stream changes with time, but the average flow velocity is nearly steady.

Fig 2. sketch map of mean velocity in vertical

Velocities at most depths should be in an appropriate range in order to guarantee the ability of the fish
to spawn. For example, when an average velocity of a section of a certain control station is 0.27m/s,
according to the velocity distribution and the distribution rule of mean velocity in the vertical along the
river width (fig2), the range of the velocity from surface to relative depth 0.6m is 0.30~0.49m/s, and the
depth and velocity of section can basically satisfy the demand of fish spawning. Therefore, we select the
flow corresponding to the velocity of 0.27m/s to be the appropriate flow to enable fish to thrive. The
rivers in the plain mostly a show wide and shallow riverway, and the water surface slope is small, the
form of stream is steady, and the mean velocity is small. The rivers in the mountain usually show narrow
riverways. The riverbeds are deeply incised by streams, and the water surface slope and the mean velocity
are larger than that of rivers located in plains.
So, the appropriate ecological flow requires that in most parts of the water areas the velocity should be
0.3~0.4m/s. On these grounds, at the selected hydrometric-section, we take the hydrological annals data
of 20 years to calculate the appropriate ecological flow of each year respectively, and conclude the
normal average as the appropriate ecological flow of the section.
3. Calculation and analysis for example
3.1 The selection of section

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We take the hydrometric station as the control section to calculate the minimum ecological flow and
the appropriate ecological flow. When selecting the hydrometric station, attempts to select many
hydrometric station throughout upstream, midstream, and downstream of the same river were made in
order to proceed to analyze the entire river system and determine the ecological flow. Commonly, at least
one station for the basin area smaller than 1*104km2 must be selected, and for the main river and large
rivers, we should select as many hydrometric stations as possible to analyze the system. In addition, we
should also select hydrometric stations that lie at sections between provinces, or select based on the needs
of practical management and programming. The selected stations should be provided with the available
basal data of 10 years, including water level, flow, large section etc., and the data must be dependable and
representative.
According to the rules for selecting hydrological control section, in Liao basin we select 9 control
sections, which lies at the East Liao, West Liao, the main rivers of Liao, the Raoyang River, Dalin River,
Hun River and Taizi River, and proceed to calculate and check the minimum ecological flow and the
appropriate ecological flows(table 1). Of the sections, ZhengJiatun Station at West Liao, Taiping Station
at East Liao and FuDedian Station at main river of Liao are the sections between provinces.
Table 1. General situation of the main hydrological sections located in Liao basin

River

West Liao
Eest Liao
Main river

Control section

Basin

Elevation of river
Annual precipitation
bottom

Normal mean
flow

Time series

/104km2

/m

/mm

/m3/s

Maixin

5.09

280.15

394.5

43.1

1970-1985

zhengjiatun

12.67

114.94

394.3

53.2

1965-1985

Taiping

1.04

6.68

557.2

25.2

1965-1980

fudedian

14.77

97.04

411.6

87.3

1973-1985

zhujiafang

17.71

7.89

587.9

168

1968-1985

dongbaichengzi

0.21

69.56

513.6

4.40

1965-1985

Dalin

zhaoyang

1.02

97.31

482.0

22.2

1965-1985

Hun

xingjiawobao

1.10

2.58

655.4

81.7

1965-1985

Taizi

tangmazhai

1.12

0.68

681.8

93.0

1965-1985

Raoyang

3.2 Results and Analysis

First, the minimum ecological flow will be calculated. After calculation and analysis of the normal
hydrological data series for the selected sections of Liao, including the water levels, discharges, large
sections, etc, the relation curve between the relative flows and the riverway scale of each year can be
plotted. Fig 3 and Fig 4 show the relation curves of Taiping station and Maixin station. As seen from the
curves, when the relative flow at Taiping station is about 7.5% (E), and the relative flow at Maixin station
is about 9.5%(E), the relation curves show obvious inflexion. Therefore, we can determine the proportion
of the minimum ecological flow to normal mean natural flow at Taiping and Maixin stations to be 7.5%
and 9.5%, respectively, which corresponds to minimum flow values of 1.83m3/s and 4.09m3/s,
respectively. The relative riverway scale maintained by the minimum ecological flow of Taiping station is
70.3%, and that of Maixin station is 65.7%. That the relation curves between relative flow and riverway
scale of other stations also shows obvious inflexion (figure omitted) and indicates that there is a critical
point below which flow cannot drop in order to ensure the survival of the river.

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Fig 3. The relation curve between relative flow and riverway scale of Taiping station of West Liao (left)
Fig 4. The relation curve between relative flow and riverway scale of Maixing station of East Liao (right)

Fig 5. The flow-velocity curve of 1973 at Maixin station (left)

Fig 6. The flow-velocity curve of 1974 at Taiping station. (right)

Second, the appropriate ecological flow will be calculated. At the selected hydrological control section
in Liao basin, by establishing the relationship among water level, discharge and velocity, we found the
minimum appropriate velocity for fish to spawn and propagate to be 0.3m/s. This value was used to
calculate the appropriate ecological flow of river. Due to the velocity in riverways is influenced by many
factors, including section depth, frost, wind and the situation of upstream and downstream etc, the
relationship among water level, discharge and velocity are not steady, so, we should choose hydrological
data before flood for establishing among them. The flow-velocity relation curve at Maixin and Taiping
station are shown in Fig5 and Fig6. We selected the years of 1973 and 1974 to calculate the appropriate
flow because in these two years the hydraulic parameters in the control sections are the most similar to
the normal average.
The calculation results of the minimum ecological flow and appropriate ecological flow at other
hydrological control sections in Liao basin can be seen in table 2. The minimum ecological flow of Liao
is between 5% and 13% of natural flow. Both upstream and downstream of Liao, the minimum ecological
flow gradually increases, while the minimum relative flow gradually decreases. This phenomenon proves
that small rivers are easier to influence than large rivers, and they need larger relative mean flows to
maintain the objective of environmental protection. Therefore, by use of this change rule of river
ecological flow in sections where the critical values for river survival are not established, we can use the
hydrological and morphological characteristics of basin itself to conclude the minimum ecological flow.
The calculation results of appropriate ecological flow indicate that the appropriate relative flows of the
main and branch rivers of Liao are 19~37%, while the appropriate relative flows of some rivers, like the

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Huntai River, which ranges to the sea, is more than 37%. The former rivers have a steady water level,
flow, and velocity, so attaining appropriate relative flow is more reasonable, while the results of latter
rivers increase. There are two reasons for this observation: one is that rivers like Huntai River that range
to the sea are located in the plain of Liao, and have wide and shallow riverways. In addition, they are
located alongside the sea, and the jacking of ocean tides have a great influence on the direction and
magnitude of the rivers velocity. The relation points between flow and velocity of the influenced sections
incline left in the curves, and the velocity of the same flow decreases. For example, at Tangmazhai station
where oceanic tides have a great influence, the relative flow must reach 53.1% to satisfy the velocity of
0.3m/s. The other is that the small rivers in the mountains show that their riverbed has a steep slope, and
the riverways are not steady. For example at Dongbaichengzi station of Raoyang River, the appropriate
relative flows reach 59.9%. Therefore, the fish habitat method doesnt work in sections that are
influenced by the jacking of backwater, or in small rivers located in the mountains.
Table 2. Calculation results of minimum flow and appropriate ecological flow of Liao
Minimum ecological flow

Appropriate ecological flow

section

flow
m3/s

Flow ratio
%

Wetted
Perimeter
ratio

Advised flow
ratio
%

Maixin
zhengjt
Taiping
Fudedian
zhujiafang
dongbchz
zhaoyang
xinjwb
tangmazh

4.09
4.73
1.83
7.30
8.89
0.49
1.91
7.84
11.8

9.50
8.9
7.33
8.39
5.29
11.1
8.6
9.6
12.7

65.7
35.7
70.3
35.6
22.3
49.9
31.8
73.8
73.5

810
7.5
59
11
8
10
13

flow
m3/s

Flow ratio
%

9.75
10.1
7.36
20.8
42.4
2.6
9.4
25
49.4

22.7
19.1
29.5
23.9
25.2
59.9**
36.7
30.6
53.1 **

Advised Flow
ratio
%
1923
30
2425
-37
31
--

4. Conclusion
By using the river morphologic method, and through plotting the non-dimensional flow-scale relation
curve, we can calculate the minimum ecological flows in both upstream and downstream areas of the Liao
Basin. The calculations show that the minimum ecological flows range from 5% to 13%; and as water
flows downstream in the rivers, the flows gradually decrease. By using of this change rule for the section
critical flow values are not established, we can use the hydrological and morphological characteristics of
the basin itself to determine the minimum ecological flows.
By taking the fish habitat method to calculate appropriate ecological flows, we found that the
appropriate relative flows of the main and branch river of Liao are between 19% and 37%. The research
indicates that for rivers where the sections have a steady relation of water level, flow, and velocity, the
calculations derived from the fish habitat method are reasonable and the applicable; but, for rivers which
are influenced by the jacking of river backwater, or by oceanic tides; and for small rivers in mountainous
regions where the riverway is unsteady, we must use other methods to determine minimum flow values.
Acknowledgements
This research work is Supported by Commonweal and Specialized Program for Scientific Research,

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Ministry of Water Resources of China (Grant No. 200901043), National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant No. 51109138) and the Key Technologies R&D Program (No.2004BA610A-01).
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[4] Chen Minjian, Feng Huali, Wang Liqun et al. Research report on ecological water use standard in china, nanjing, 2005
[5] Chen Minjian, Feng Huali, Wang Liqun et al. Calculation methods for appropriate ecological flow[J] Advances in water
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[6] Liu jiankang, He Biwu. Fresh water fishes aquiculture in China[M], Beijing, Technological Press,1992
[7] Liu Jiankang. Senior hydrobiology[M]. Beijing, The Science Press, 1999