Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94

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Water Science and Engineering

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Hydrological response to climate change and human activities: A case study

of Taihu Basin, China
Juan Wu a, Zhi-yong Wu b,*, He-juan Lin a, Hai-ping Ji a, Min Liu a
a
Bureau of Hydrology, Taihu Basin Authority of Ministry of Water Resources, Shanghai 200434, China
b
College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Received 8 July 2019; accepted 20 September 2019
Available online 3 July 2020

Abstract

Climate change and human activities have changed a number of characteristics of river flow in the Taihu Basin. Based on long-term time
series of hydrological data from 1986 to 2015, we analyzed variability in precipitation, water stage, water diversion from the Yangtze River, and
net inflow into Taihu Lake with the Mann-Kendall test. The non-stationary relationship between precipitation and water stage was first analyzed
for the Taihu Basin and the Wuchengxiyu (WCXY) sub-region. The optimized regional and urban regulation schemes were explored to tackle
high water stage problems through the hydrodynamic model. The results showed the following: (1) The highest, lowest, and average Taihu Lake
water stages of all months had increasing trends. The total net inflow into Taihu Lake from the Huxi (HX) sub-region and the Wangting Sluice
increased significantly. (2) The Taihu Lake water stage decreased much more slowly after 2002; it was steadier and higher after 2002. After the
construction of Wuxi urban flood control projects, the average water stage of the inner city was 0.16e0.40 m lower than that of suburbs in the
flood season, leading to the transfer of flooding in inner cities to suburbs and increasing inflow from HX into Taihu Lake. (3) The regional
optimized schemes were more satisfactory in not increasing the inner city flood control burden, thereby decreasing the average water stage by
0.04e0.13 m, and the highest water stage by 0.04e0.09 m for Taihu Lake and the sub-region in the flood season. Future flood control research
should set the basin as the basic unit. Decreasing diversion and drainage lines along the Yangtze River can take an active role in flood control.
© 2020 Hohai University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: Hydrological response; Climate change; Human activities; Flood control; Mann-Kendall test; Taihu Basin

1. Introduction hydrological cycle, such as rainfall and radiation. Human ac-

The hydrological cycle of a catchment is a complex process
that is influenced by climate, physical characteristics of the
catchment, and human activities (Liu and Xu, 2015; Wang
et al., 2011b; Zhu et al., 2015b; Xia et al., 2018; Hasan and
Wyseure, 2018). Climate determines the main inputs to the
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development
Project (Grants No. 2018YFC0407900 and 2017YFC1502403), the Special
Public Sector Research Program of the Ministry of Water Resources of China
(Grant No. 201501014), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grants No. 51779071 and 51579065).
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wzyhhu@gmail.com (Zhi-yong Wu).
Peer review under responsibility of Hohai University.
tivities have persistent influences on runoff distribution. In the
past sixty years, both global climate change and intensive
human activities have caused remarkable influences on hy-
drological process all over the world (Liu et al., 2016). A
number of studies have shown that elements of the hydro-
logical cycle, such as precipitation and water stage, have
changed both in time and space, due to hydraulic engineering
construction (Gu et al., 2017). Urbanization on river systems
has been widely recognized as the most significant influence
of all human activities (Shi et al., 2010), leading to hydro-
logical regime variation and uncertainties in flood control.
With impervious areas associated with buildings and trans-
portation infrastructure increasing (Gregory, 2006; Zhang
et al., 2017), both surface runoff and flow velocity into

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wse.2020.06.006
1674-2370/© 2020 Hohai University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
84 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94
rivers have increased significantly, leading to frequent regional
precipitous flood occurrence (Yuan et al., 2006).
With the background of global climate change (Todorov
et al., 2018), the distribution of water resources and the fre-
quency of floods and droughts for the Taihu Basin in recent
years has undergone a lot of change, elevating the discrepancy
between water supply and demand (Zhou et al., 2013). Most
rivers in the Taihu Basin have been interrupted by sluices,
pump stations, and floodgates (Zhao et al., 2011). There are 68
sluices along the Yangtze River, 186 sluices surrounding Taihu
Lake, and nine sluices along Hangzhou Bay to defend against
flooding and meet water resources demand (Yin et al., 2009).
According to Li et al. (2013), urbanization in China has
been in a state of acceleration since 1978. Following a basin-
wide catastrophic flood in 1991, the first round of compre-
hensive regulation projects were begun. The three main basin
flood control projects (the Wangyu River, the Taipu River, and
Lake Levee) were completed by the end of 1999, while
regional flood control projects were completed by the end of
2002. The Taihu Basin Authority (TBA) began to carry out
water diversion from the Yangtze River to the Taihu Basin
through the Wangyu River and to supply water downstream
through the Taipu River in 2002. To ensure flood prevention
security in the cities, including Suzhou, Huzhou, Jiaxing,
Wuxi, and Changzhou, urban flood control projects have been
built around Taihu Lake since 2003 with a flood protection
standard of 100 years or 200 years. The flood control capacity
has been further enhanced since 2002, when the complex
system of flood control infrastructure was formed, including
dikes, large sluice gates, and pumping stations. This study
addressed the effects of human activities on the basin, and on
regional and urban flood control projects across the basin.
Therefore, 2002 can be considered an important demarcation
point in this study or any study of hydrological regime vari-
ation in the Taihu Basin.
Research in the Taihu Basin has focused on hydrological
simulation (Liu et al., 2013; Wang and Yang, 2007), flood risk
management (Gong and Lin, 2009), water quality (Ye et al.,
2017), and ecological problems (Liu et al., 2018). Research
on hydrological response to urbanization has been a topic of
wide concern in recent years (Zhang et al., 2018). Zhu et al.
(2015a) found that river connectivity in Shanghai degraded
significantly and land use changed with more building areas
and fewer agricultural areas. Yang et al. (2014) analyzed
precipitation differences between cities and suburbs in the
Taihu Basin and revealed that the maximum daily precipitation
and the number of rainstorm days increased significantly.
Deng et al. (2015) investigated temporal and spatial change of
river systems in the Taihu Basin, and demonstrated that
changes in river density, water surface ratio, and main river
area-to-length ratio in the rapid urbanization period were
much greater than those in the slow urbanization period. Wang
et al. (2016) assessed the contributions of precipitation and
human activity to water stage increase in the plain river
network region of the Taihu Basin, demonstrating that human
activities have played more and more important roles in
extreme water stage changes since the late 1980s.
By the end of 2015, the population of Taihu Basin reached
59.97 million and the GDP was 6 688 billion Yuan, repre-
senting about 4.4% and 9.9% of the nation's totals, respec-
tively. Due to its rapid social-economic development, the
natural hydrological cycle in the Taihu Basin has been con-
verted to an artificially dominated natural-social water cycle,
and the Taihu Basin suffers high vulnerability to natural di-
sasters (Zhao and Wen, 2012). Therefore, it is important to
evaluate the impacts of climate change and human activities,
summarize new characteristics of potential threats to storage
and drainage capacity, and propose countermeasures to deal
with the challenging situation of hydrological regime variation
in the basin.
In this study, both climate change (precipitation) and
changes in human activities (water diversion and drainage
along the Yangtze River, inflow and outflow of Taihu Lake,
urban flood control projects, and urbanization) were consid-
ered to identify hydrological response at different spatio-
temporal scales. First, the Mann-Kendall test was used to
detect the trends of sub-region precipitation of the Taihu
Basin, the water stage of Taihu Lake, water diversion and
drainage along the Yangtze River, and inflow and outflow of
Taihu Lake. Second, possible reasons for Taihu Lake water
stage change and increase of net inflow into Taihu Lake were
examined after considering the operation of Wuxi urban flood
control projects. Third, with the aim of increasing basin and
regional drainage ability and tackling high water stage prob-
lems in the Jiangnan Canal, optimized regulation schemes of
regional and urban projects were determined through hydro-
dynamic models. These can provide scientific suggestions for
further research, such as impacts of urbanization on the hy-
drological cycle, water resources availability, and sustainable
development of water safety in the Taihu Basin.
2. Study area and data
2.1. Study area
The Taihu Basin (30
280 N to 32
150 N, and 119
110 E to
121
530 E) is located in the Yangtze River Delta, with the
Yangtze River at the north, the Qiantang River at the south,
and the East Sea at the east. The western parts of the Taihu
Basin are mountainous areas (Peng et al., 2016). The total area
of the Taihu Basin is 36 895 km2, with portions in Jiangsu
Province covering 19 399 km2, portions in Zhejiang Province
covering 12 095 km2, portions in Shanghai City covering
5 176 km2, and portions in Anhui Province covering 225 km2.
The hydrographic network of the Taihu Basin is complicated
(Deng et al., 2016), with rivers and lakes accounting for 17%
of the total area of the basin. The elevation of low land and
polder around the Taihu Lake is no more than 5 m. About 80%
of the Taihu Basin is plains, while the remaining 20% is
occupied by low hills and mountains. As the third largest
freshwater lake in China, with a water area of 2 338 km2,
Taihu Lake is a flood storage and regulation center, whose
average water depth is 1.89 m and water volume is 4.428
billion m3. The average lake bottom elevation is 1 m above
 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94
mean sea level. The longest river in the Taihu Basin is the
Jiangnan Canal, with a total length of 203 km, flowing through
Changzhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou.
The average annual precipitation of the Taihu Basin is
1 218.1 mm, mainly concentrated in the flood season from
May to September (Wang et al., 2011a). The normal Meiyu
period with intensive precipitation from mid-June to early July
often lasts for 25 d, accounting for about 19.8% of the annual
precipitation, but large differences of precipitation amount
exist in various years. For example, the Meiyu did not appear
in 1958 and 1978, whereas the precipitation amounts of the
Meiyu period in 1991 and 1999 were much greater than the
average precipitation.
2.2. Data
Daily precipitation and evaporation of hydrometric stations,
water stage stations of Taihu Lake and Wuxi, and the water
diversion and drainage amounts along the Yangtze River were
excerpted from the Annual Hydrological Reports. The inflow
and outflow data of Taihu Lake were obtained from the Bureau
of Hydrology, Taihu Basin Authority of Ministry of Water
Resources.
(1) Precipitation data were from 1986 to 2015. As shown in
Fig. 1, based on the topography and water features, the whole
basin can be divided into seven sub-regions with 106 hydro-
metric stations to calculate average precipitation, including the
Zhexi (ZX) sub-region with 23 stations, the Huxi (HX) sub-
region with 19 stations, the Taihu (TH) sub-region with
eight stations, the Wuchengxiyu (WCXY) sub-region with 12
stations, the Yangchengdianmao (YCDM) sub-region with 13
stations, the Hangjiahu (HJH) sub-region with 17 stations, and
the Pudongpuxi (PDPX) sub-region with 14 stations. The
arithmetic mean method was applied in calculating the
average precipitation of each sub-region, while the area-
weighted mean method was applied in calculating the
average precipitation of the Taihu Basin based on sub-region
area. In Fig. 1, the green shadow represents polder areas
Fig. 1. Taihu Basin and its sub-regions.
85
greater than 33.3 km2, and the blue line represents the Jian-
gnan Canal, flowing through Changzhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou.
(2) Water stage data were from 1986 to 2015. The Taihu
Lake water stage is the average value of five stations sur-
rounding Taihu Lake: Dapukou, Wangtingtai, Xishan, Xiao-
meikou, and Jiapu. The Wuxi suburb water stage station is
located in the Jiangnan Canal close to urban flood control
projects, while the Wuxi inner station is located in the urban
area, which is considered to be protected by the urban flood
control projects. Suffering from severe land subsidence caused
by extensive groundwater exploitation since the 1980s, the
maximum cumulative subsidence was over 1 m for some
stations in the Taihu Basin (Wu et al., 2009). However, the
water stage in the Annual Hydrological Reports was observed
based on a stationary datum. The occurrence of land subsi-
dence leads to height datum distortion. Thus, the water level
ought to be modified. All the water stage data were based on
the Zhenjiang Wusong elevation system and modified before
trend analysis. Daily observed flood events with different
magnitudes of precipitation and peak feature (single- or multi-
peak) of Taihu Lake and Wuxi water stage stations were
selected to evaluate urbanization effects.
(3) The water diversion data, including inflow and
outflow of Taihu Lake, were from 1986 to 2015. The water
diversion project from the Yangtze River to the Taihu Basin
through the Wangyu River and the supply downstream
through the Taipu River were launched in 2002. Water
diversion and drainage amount were from 14 sluices along
the Yangtze River, including four sluices in HX, four sluices
in WCXY, the Wangyu Sluice, and five sluices in YCDM.
Inflow and outflow of Taihu Lake were from 23 tour gauging
discharge stations, including the Taipu Sluice, the Wangting
Sluice, three stations (Changxing, Yangjiabu, and Hang-
changqiao) in ZX, six stations (Zhihugang, Wujingang,
Yapugang, Wuxiqiao, Chengdonggangqiao, and Dagangqiao)
in HX, five stations (Daxuanhe pump station, Dushan Sluice,
Meilianghu pump station, Wulihu Sluice, and Yanhu Sluice)
in WCXY, four stations (Tongkeng Sluice, Xujiangdaqiao,
Guajingkou, and Lianhuqiao) in YCDM, and three stations
(Chengbei Sluice, Huanlou Sluice, and Tuanjieqiao) in HJH.
All the stations surrounding Taihu Lake are shown in Fig. 2.
(4) Land use data were acquired by digitizing the 1985,
2000, and 2010 land cover maps (1:10 000), which were
monitored by the interpreted thematic mapper (TM). The land
cover maps were classified into four categories: cropland,
forest, urban area, and water area. All scenes adopted from
Landsat TM by manual interpretation included radiometric
and geometric corrections. The land cover map of 2010 was
adopted in the hydrodynamic model.
(5) Evaporation and discharge data from 1999, 2000, 2003,
2008, 2009, and 2010 were used in the model. Daily evapo-
ration and discharge data from the Gangkou hydrometric
station, Deqing hydrometric station, Fushi Reservoir, and
Qingshan Reservoir were used in the Xin'anjiang model. Daily
evaporation data from the Hangchangqiao Station and the
Taipu Sluice were used in the river network hydrodynamic
model.
86 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94

3. Methods

3.1. Nonparametric Mann-Kendall test for monotonic trend

The Mann-Kendall test is a simple but useful method to

identify changes in long-term hydrological series (Mann,
1945), especially for complicated basins where it is difficult
for mathematical modeling to provide satisfactory results (Guo
et al., 2018a). In the Mann-Kendall test, the null hypothesis H0
states that there is no trend in the population data set (x1 ;x2 ;/;
xn ) (Guo et al., 2018b). The alternative hypothesis H1 of a two-
sided test is that a monotonic trend exists in the data set. The
statistic S is computed as follows:
X
n1 X
n
 
S¼ sgn xj  xk
k¼1 j¼kþ1
For sample sizes larger than 10, the statistics S are
approximately normally distributed, with mean EðSÞ and
variance VðSÞ as follows:
EðSÞ ¼ 0
VðSÞ ¼ 0
The standardized statistics (Z) are formulated as follows:
8 into four kinds of underlying surfaces: water surface, paddy
>
> S1
>
> pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi S>0
>
< VðSÞ
Z¼ 0 S¼0
>
> inside and outside of polder areas. For the water surface,
>
> Sþ1
>
: pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi S<0
VðSÞ
Positive and negative Z values indicate upward and
downward trends, respectively. A value of Z1a=2 is deter-
mined using a standard normal distribution table. The existing
trend is considered to be statistically significant if jZj >
Z1a=2 . In this study, the significance level a was set to be 0.05
and 0.10 with Z1a=2 values equal to 1.96 and 1.65,
respectively.
3.2. Runoff model and hydrodynamic model in Taihu Basin
In order to study the effects of water diversion projects and
urban flood control projects on hydraulic structure regulation,
a water quantity numerical model for the Taihu Basin was
adopted. It was composed of rainfall-runoff simulation and the
river network hydrodynamic model. Developed by Hohai
University (Guo et al., 2016), the rainfall-runoff simulation
provides the lateral inflow and discharge boundary for the river
network hydrodynamic model. The water quantity numerical
model is composed of six parts: (1) rainfall-runoff simulation,
(2) unsteady flow simulation of river networks, (3) general-
ization of river networks and lakes, (4) generalization and
simulation of hydraulic structures, (5) simulation of boundary
conditions, and (6) calibration and verification.
ð1Þ
Fig. 2. Locations of water stage and discharge stations surrounding
Taihu Lake.
(1) Rainfall-runoff simulation: The runoff model includes
runoff yield and concentration. Both hilly regions and plain
ð2Þ
river networks exist in the Taihu Basin, and the traditional
Xin'anjiang model (Zhao, 1992) was applied to hilly regions of
ð3Þ
the Zhexi sub-region, whose discharge was offered to plain
areas as inputs. Each sub-region in plain areas was classified
fields, arid land, and urban construction land. Therefore,
different runoff models and confluence processing patterns
were adopted based on different characteristics of confluence
ð4Þ
runoff could be obtained using rainfall minus evaporation. For
paddy fields, irrigation programs of different growth phases
were considered, as well as water demand coefficients, infil-
tration rate, and irrigation-drainage mode. For arid land, the
Xin'anjiang model of three layers of evaporation was used. For
urban construction land, runoff could be obtained using net
rainfall multiplied by the runoff coefficient. Drainage modulus
was considered in the polder area confluence, and a plain re-
gion confluence unit hydrograph was used outside of polder
areas.
(2) Unsteady flow simulation of river networks: Basic
equations of one-dimensional unsteady flow in the aqueduct
included the continuous equation and momentum equation
(Chen et al., 2016). At each river network node, conservation
of mass and momentum was available. The river network
was dispersed with the four-point implicit difference
method, and basic equations were resolved with the iteration
method.
(3) Generalization of river networks and lakes: As shown in
Fig. 3, 1 482 rivers, 4 275 cross-sections, and 1 164 nodes were
generalized in the hydrodynamic model, including 138 storage
nodes and 215 control buildings. The whole generalized area for
the Taihu Basin was 36 847.8 km2 (which is very close to the
real basin area), including the plain regions of 28 534.4 km2,
river networks and lakes of 1 083.3 km2, and hilly regions of
7 230.1 km2.
 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94 87

(6) Calibration and verification: Due to limitations of the

Fig. 3. Generalized rivers and nodes for hydrodynamic model in
Taihu Basin.
(4) Generalization and simulation of hydraulic structures:
The hydraulic structures include water gates, ship locks, cul-
verts, and pump stations. The nodes were set at upstream and
downstream of hydraulic structures, and discharge was
calculated with the weir formula.
(5) Simulation of boundary conditions: The boundary
conditions included precipitation, evaporation, and tidal
evaporation data, only data from the years 1999, 2000, 2003,
2008, 2009, and 2010 were collected. In order to keep consistent
with typical scenarios of existing basin and regional planning,
the data of years 1999, 2000, 2008, and 2009 were chosen in the
calibration period to represent extraordinarily abundant, abun-
dant, normal, and scarce precipitation, respectively. The 2003
and 2010 data used in the verification period are two typical
scenarios representing scarce precipitation and normal-to-
partially abundant precipitation. The Xin'anjiang model pa-
rameters that needed to be calibrated for hilly regions of the
Zhexi sub-region included four modules: evapotranspiration,
runoff generation, runoff separation, and runoff routing. The
parameters of hydrodynamic models for plain regions included
roughness, the free flow coefficient, and the submerged flow
coefficient. The model parameters are listed in Table 1.
Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE ) was used to evaluate
model performance. When NSE approaches 1.0, the model
simulates the measured data perfectly. When NSE is negative,
the model is a worse predictor than the measured mean value.
The equation for NSE is as follows:
P
n
ðZsi  Zoi Þ
2

level. For each sub-region, the initial water stage of each NSE ¼ 1:0  i¼1 ð5Þ
cross-section was assigned the same value, while the initial Pn
ðZsi  Z o Þ2
discharge was 0. The boundary condition along the Yangtze i¼1
River and Hangzhou Bay was the tidal level. For tidal sta-
tions with observation data, the unit hydrograph was adopted where Zoi and Zsi are the observed and simulated water levels
to calculate integral tidal level based on daily semidiurnal at time i, Z o is the mean observed data over the simulation
tide. For tidal stations lacking observation data, the tidal period, and n is the total number of observations. For the
level interpolation formulas were adopted through relative calibration period at the daily level in this study, NSE was
distance with observed stations. 0.98. For the validation period, NSE was 0.97.
Table 1
Parameters of Xin'anjiang model and river network hydrodynamic model.
Module Parameter Description Value
Evapotranspiration of Xin'anjiang model KC Ratio of potential evapotranspiration to pan evaporation 0e1
UM Areal mean tension water capacity of upper soil layer 20 mm
LM Areal mean tension water capacity of lower soil layer 60 mm
C Coefficient of the deeper layer for calculation of evapotranspiration from 0.13
deeper layer
Runoff generation of Xin'anjiang model WM Areal mean tension water capacity 120 mm
B Exponential parameter with a single parabolic curve of the tension 0.2e0.3
water capacity
IM Percentage of impervious and saturated areas in the catchment 0.05e0.10
Runoff separation of Xin'anjiang model SM Areal mean free water capacity of the surface soil layer 15e30 mm
EX Exponent of the free water capacity curve 1.5
KG Outflow coefficient of the free water storage to groundwater relationships 0.2e0.4
KI Outflow coefficients of the free water storage to interflow relationships 0.3e0.5
Runoff routing of Xin'anjiang model CI Recession constants of the interflow storage 0.6e0.9
CG Recession constants of the groundwater storage 0.995e0.998
CS Recession constants of the surface water storage 0.10e0.35
L Lag time of channel routing 1
KE Muskingum coefficient of residence time of water 1
XE Muskingum coefficient of geometry factor 0e0.5
River network hydrodynamic model n Roughness 0.02e0.03
m Free flow coefficient of sluice 0.3e0.4
jm Submerged flow coefficient of sluice 0.6e0.9
88 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94

Table 2
Land use changes in Taihu Basin from 1985 to 2010.
Land use Area (km2) Proportion (%) Change rate (%)
1985 2000 2010 1985 2000 2010 1985e2000 2000e2010 1985e2010
Cropland 23 482 19 628 17 675 64 53 48 16 10 25
Forest 5 137 5 122 5 276 14 14 14 0 3 3
Urban area 3 570 6 853 8 943 10 19 24 92 30 151
Water area 4 706 5 291 5 001 13 14 14 12 5 6

4. Results significance level of 0.05. Monthly sub-region precipitation in

From 1985 to 2010, the most noticeable change in land
use was conversion of cropland to urban area. In 1985,
cropland occupied the largest proportion of land (64%),
followed by forest (14%), water area (13%), and urban area
(10%). In 2000, the proportion of cropland decreased to
53%, while the proportion of urban area increased to 19%.
In 2010, the proportion of cropland decreased to 48%,
whereas the proportion of urban area increased to 24%. The
land use change is shown in Table 2. In terms of the change
rate, the urban area has undergone the most significant
changes, by 151% (from 3 570 km2 in 1985 to 8 943 km2 in
2010), followed by cropland, with a decreasing rate of 25%
(from 23 482 km2 in 1985 to 17 675 km2 in 2010). The
change was more significant from 1985 to 2000. As shown
in Fig. 4, small towns expanded around the former urban
center, while the transport infrastructure was well devel-
oped, causing the urban boundary to blur and city growth to
become scattered.
4.1. Trends of precipitation, water stage, diversion,
inflow, and outflow
The increasing trends of annual precipitation and precipi-
tation in the flood season (from May to September) over the
Taihu Basin were not statistically significant. As shown in
Fig. 5, monthly basin precipitation decreased significantly at a
significance level of 0.05 in April, May, and September, with Z
values of 2.54, 2.33, and 2.82, respectively. The sub-
region precipitation in the non-flood season (January to
March, October to December) demonstrated increasing trends,
but only precipitation in January increased significantly at a
April, May, and September decreased significantly at a sig-
nificance level of 0.1, except in HX.
The increasing trend of the highest annual Taihu Lake
water stage (HWS) was not significant, with a Z value of 1.45.
However, the Z value of the lowest annual Taihu Lake water
stage (LWS) reached 5.08, and the Z value of the average
annual Taihu Lake water stage (AWS) reached 2.57, which
indicated that LWS and AWS increased significantly at a
significance level of 0.05. As shown in Fig. 6(a), the HWS,
LWS, and AWS of all months had increasing trends, especially
in January, February, March, April, August, and December.
Apart from this, the LWS in May, July, September, and
November also increased significantly, while the AWS in
September and November increased significantly (Fig. 6(b)).
Considering the 11 key projects completed and water diver-
sion begun in 2002, the HWS, LWS, and AWS variations were
compared before 2001 and after 2002. As shown in Fig. 6(b),
from January to April and in December, the HWS increased by
more than 0.18 m, the LWS increased by more than 0.19 m,
and the AWS increased by more than 0.17 m. The largest
increasing extent of the HWS, LWS, and AWS reached more
than 0.29 m in March, whereas the least increasing extent
reached more than 0.04 m in July.
Monthly net inflow into the Taihu Lake were defined as the
daily accumulative amount of water diversion minus
drainage. As shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b), net inflow from HX
into Taihu Lake had significant increasing trends for all
months, and inflow from the Wangting Sluice into Taihu Lake
had insignificant increasing trends in non-flood seasons
except for April. Compared with net inflow before 2001, net
inflow from HX after 2002 increased by 120  106 m3 to
402  106 m3, while the net inflow from the Wangyu Sluice

Fig. 4. Land use changes in Taihu Basin from 1985 to 2010.

 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94
Fig. 5. Trend analysis of precipitation over Taihu Basin from 1954 to 2015.
increased by 5  106 m3 to 185  106 m3. However, net
inflow from ZX into Taihu Lake decreased by 36  106 m3 to
202  106 m3 in the flood season, and decreased by
1  106 m3 to 76  106 m3 in the non-flood season except in
October. As shown in Fig. 7(c) and (d), the net outflow of the
Taipu Sluice had decreasing trends in the non-flood season
except in March. In April, May, June, July, September,
October, and November, the net outflow of YCDM had
decreasing trends, whereas that of HJH had increasing trends.
Compared with net outflow before 2001, net outflow of HJH
after 2002 increased by 32  106 m3 to 155  106 m3, and the
Taipu Sluice decreased by 49  106 m3 to 72  106 m3 in the
non-flood season except in March. The net outflow of YCDM
decreased by 11  106 m3 to 121  106 m3 from April to
November, and that of WCXY increased by 11  106 m3 to
34  106 m3 in the non-flood season.
The flood movement of the Taihu Basin changed a lot.
During the period from 2002 to 2015, total water diversion
from the Yangtze River through the Wangyu River reached
272.4  108 m3, with net inflow into Taihu Lake being
124.2  108 m3, and water moving downstream through the
Taipu River reaching 182.8  108 m3. Compared with the
annual net flow (differences between inflow and outflow)
before 2001, the annual net inflow from HX increased by
24.9  108 m3, the value from the Wangting Sluice increased
by 7.1  108 m3, and the value from ZX decreased by
7.1  108 m3. However, net outflow of HJH increased by
Fig. 6. Trends and increase of HWS, LWS, and AWS.
89
11.4  108 m3, the value of WCXY increased by 1.9  108 m3,
the Taipu Sluice decreased by 3.0  108 m3, and the value of
YCDM decreased by 3.7  108 m3.
4.2. Possible reasons for Taihu Lake water stage increase
and flood risks in Taihu Basin
As mentioned above, the year of 2002 can be considered an
important demarcation point to study hydrological regime
variation in the Taihu Basin. In order to eliminate the influence
of water diversion on the Taihu Lake water stage, we selected
218 flood events from 1986 to 2015 to study the relationships
between the Taihu Lake water stage increase and precipitation
under low net water diversion conditions. The Taihu Lake
water stage increase has a strong relationship with precipita-
tion, and the correlation coefficient was 0.86 before 2001, but
0.83 after 2002. Similarly, in order to eliminate the influence
of precipitation on the Taihu Lake water stage increase, we
selected 233 flood events to study the relationships between
the Taihu Lake water stage increase and net water diversion
from the Yangtze River under low-precipitation conditions.
The correlation coefficient was 0.30 before 2001, but 0.39
after 2002.
For each period of water diversion from the Yangtze River
into Taihu Lake after 2002, the Taihu Lake water stage
demonstrated a very slow decreasing trend, taking five to six
days to complete a 0.01-m decrease. However, for the same
90 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94

Fig. 7. Trends and variation of net inflow and net outflow of different sub-regions.

period before 2001, it took only two to three days to complete
a 0.01-m decrease. Therefore, the Taihu Lake water stage
decreased much more slowly after 2002, becoming steadier
and generally higher after 2002. Therefore, the increase of the
Taihu Lake water stage is still dominated by precipitation,
while the decrease is affected by water diversion from the
Yangtze River after 2002.
For the period before 2001, we selected 116 heavy flood
events with an average basin precipitation of 57.8 mm, while
the Taihu Lake water stage increased from 3.10 m to 3.22 m
on average. For the period after 2002, we selected 39 flood
events with an average precipitation of 55.9 mm, while the
water stage increased from 3.27 m to 3.38 m on average.
Compared with water stage increase for the same precipitation
before 2001, shown in Table 3, water stage increased more
after 2002 when precipitation exceeded 70 mm, while the
water stage increased more significantly when precipitation
exceeded 120 mm. For the same 0.01 m of the Taihu Lake
water stage increase after 2002, 5 mm of average precipitation
was needed under the 50-mm precipitation scenario, 4 mm of
average precipitation was needed under the 100-mm scenario,
and only 3.8 mm of precipitation was needed for the 150-mm
scenario.
The Wuxi urban flood control projects were put in use in
2007, and can be used as an example to analyze the effects of
human activities on water stage in the WCXY sub-region. The
Wuxi urban flood control projects are located in the WCXY
sub-region, downstream of HX and upstream of YCDM.
Before construction of urban flood control projects, the water
stage of Wuxi inner cities was the same as that of suburbs. As
shown in Fig. 8, the annual average water stage of the inner
city was 0.16e0.40 m lower than that of suburbs in flood
seasons after construction. We selected 36 intensive flood
events to explore non-stationary relationships between area
precipitation and regional average water stage differences in
the WCXY sub-region. Before intensive precipitation
occurred, the average water stage difference between inner
cities and suburbs was 0.24 m. However, after precipitation,
the average water stage difference increased to 0.46 m on
average. With more intensive precipitation, the water stage of
suburbs increased more quickly, and more differences between
inner cities and suburbs arose. As shown in Fig. 9(a), with
more precipitation, the maximum water stage differences
DZmax between inner cities and suburbs grew larger. A 10-mm
precipitation increase may lead to a 0.054-m DZmax increase
on average. Since an initial water stage difference DZint may

Table 3
Taihu Lake water stage increase for different precipitation scenarios before 2001 and after 2002.
Time Water stage increase (m)
P ¼ 20 mm P ¼ 30 mm P ¼ 40 mm P ¼ 50 mm P ¼ 60 mm P ¼ 70 mm P ¼ 80 mm P ¼ 90 mm P ¼ 100 mm P ¼ 120 mm P ¼ 150 mm
Before 2001 0.01 0.04 0.07 0.10 0.13 0.15 0.18 0.21 0.24 0.29 0.38
After 2002 0 0.03 0.06 0.10 0.13 0.16 0.19 0.22 0.25 0.31 0.41
Note: P is precipitation.
 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94 91

Fig. 8. Average water stage differences of Wuxi inner cities and suburbs and precipitation distribution.

have already existed before intensive precipitation occurred,
we also built relationships between precipitation and the real
increase of water stage differences. The real increase of water
stage differences DZreal is defined as DZmax minus DZint . As
shown in Fig. 9(b), a 10-mm precipitation increase may lead to
0.046 m of DZreal . Therefore, flooding in inner cities was
transferred to suburbs through urban flood control projects,
leading to higher and higher water stages in suburbs, which are
especially severe in the Jiangnan Canal. Instead of flowing into
WCXY, flooding upstream was forced from HX into Taihu
Lake, increasing the inflow from HX into Taihu Lake.
The peak lag time of inflow from HX into Taihu Lake was
defined as the time duration between precipitation peak and
inflow peak. Based on the flood fluctuation process under low
net water diversion along the Yangtze River, the peak lag time
of HX inflow into Taihu Lake was one to two days before 2001,
while the peak lag time decreased to only one day after 2002.
For the same inflow into Taihu Lake of 16  106 m3, 16 mm of
precipitation was needed before 2001, while only 11 mm
precipitation was needed after 2002. With a shorter peak lag
time, more inflow was concentrated in shorter time intervals.
Thus, the efficiency of flow concentration increased after 2002.
Possible reasons for Taihu Lake water stage increase can
therefore be divided into three categories:
(1) The water diversion increase along the Yangtze River:
The HWS, LWS, and AWS of April and May increased,
although monthly precipitation of the same period decreased,
which may have been due to the water diversion of the
Wangyu Sluice from the Yangtze River. The HWS, LWS, and
AWS in August and September demonstrated significantly
increasing trends, although the precipitation of the same
period decreased significantly, which may have been caused
by the water diversion of the Wangyu Sluice and HX from the
Yangtze River storing water resources in the non-flood season.
The HWS, LWS, and AWS in November and December
increased significantly, which may have been due to the pre-
cipitation increase as well as water diversion of the Wangyu
Sluice and WCXY from the Yangtze River in order to satisfy
water requirements and improve the regional water
environment.
(2) Increase of net inflow into Taihu Lake: The increase of
multi-year average inflow was more significant than that of
outflow, and it was particularly significant for HX and the
Wangting Sluice. Compared with the multi-year average
annual net inflow before 2001, the annual net inflow after 2002
increased by 18.1  108 m3. The increase of net inflow from
HX into Taihu Lake may be due to increasing water diverted
from the Yangtze River and frequent use of Wuxi urban flood

Fig. 9. Relationships between precipitation and maximum water stage differences and between precipitation and real increase of water stage
differences.
92 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94
control projects. The Taihu Lake water stage decreased much
more slowly after 2002, causing the Taihu Lake water stage to
be steadier and higher after 2002. Flooding in Wuxi inner
cities was transferred to suburbs through urban flood control
projects, leading to a higher water stage in the Jiangnan Canal.
Instead of flowing into WCXY, flooding upstream was forced
from HX into Taihu Lake, increasing inflow of HX into Taihu
Lake.
(3) Land cover change with more impervious areas: With a
significant decrease in cropland and an increase in urban area,
both surface runoff and flow velocity from HX into Taihu Lake
increased significantly. More inflow from HX into Taihu Lake
was concentrated in a shorter time interval and the efficiency
of flow concentration increased after 2002, leading to a
quicker and higher Taihu Lake water stage increase, as well as
a heavy flood control burden for both the basin and regions.
5. Discussion on optimized flood control strategy in Taihu
Basin
With the drainage power of urban flood control projects
along the Jiangnan Canal (especially in Changzhou, Wuxi, and
Suzhou) increasing, more water in inner cities has been moved
to suburbs, leading to higher water stages and severe flood
risks in the Jiangnan Canal. Therefore, a certain in-
compatibility has already emerged in projects’ regulation
mode. In order to increase basin and regional drainage and
tackle high water stage problems in the Jiangnan Canal, the
optimized regulation schemes of regional and urban projects
were explored through water quantity numerical model
computation. The control of annual average water stage in-
crease (DZ) was the basis for the optimized regulation scheme.
One basic scheme and six optimized schemes with 1991
design precipitation were investigated in this study. The
heavy precipitation in 1991 was caused by the Meiyu, and
mainly concentrated in the northern part of the Taihu Basin.
The homogenous frequency enlargement method was adop-
ted to calculate the 1991 design precipitation of with a 50-
year return period. For basic schemes, the regulation modes
of regional and urban flood control projects are currently in
use. As shown in Table 4, for urban optimized scheme 1
(CO1), the water stage was increased by 50%DZ on the
drainage line of inner cities on the Jiangnan Canal. For urban
optimized scheme 2 (CO2), the water stage was increased by
100%DZ on drainage line of inner cities on the Jiangnan
Canal. For regional optimized scheme 1 (RO1) along the
Yangtze River, the water stage was reduced by 50%DZ for the
regional drainage line. For regional optimized scheme 2
Table 4
Basic and optimized computation schemes.
Scheme Increase of water stage
Basic scheme CO1
Drainage line of inner cities 0 þ50%DZ
Diversion line along Yangtze River 0 0
Drainage line along Yangtze River 0 0
Note: "þ" means an increase, and "" means a decrease.
(RO2), the water stage was reduced by 50%DZ for the
regional diversion line, while the water stage was reduced by
100%DZ for the regional drainage line. The urban and
regional optimized scheme 1 (CRO1) was a combination
scheme of CO1 and RO1, while the urban and regional
optimized scheme 2 (CRO2) was a combination scheme of
CO2 and RO2.
As shown in Table 5, variation between basic and opti-
mized schemes for average and highest water stage in the
flood season was compared, with HX, WCXY, and YCDM
representing regional water stage. The CO1 and CO2 had no
clear effects on reducing the average Taihu Lake and regional
water stages in the flood season. RO1 decreased the stage by
0.04e0.06 m, RO2 decreased the stage by 0.08e0.13 m, the
effect of CRO1 was basically identical to that of RO1, and the
effect of CRO2 was basically identical to that of RO2. The
water stage decrease in WCXY was more significant, followed
by the decreases in HX and YCDM. For reducing the average
suburb water stage, RO1 was better than CO1, and RO2 was
better than CO2, while CRO1 included comprehensive effects
of CO1 and RO1, and CRO2 included the comprehensive ef-
fects of CO2 and RO2. The decrease of the suburb water stage
was 0.05e0.06 m for RO1, while the decrease was
0.11e0.13 m for RO2, and more significant in Changzhou.
The decrease of the suburb water stage was 0.06e0.08 m for
CRO1, while the decrease was 0.13e0.18 m for CRO2, and
more significant in Suzhou. For CRO1 and CRO2, the suburb
water stage decrease was more significant than the city water
stage increase.
For reducing the highest Taihu Lake and regional water
stage, the combined urban and regional optimized scheme
CRO1 (CRO2) was more effective than corresponding
regional optimized scheme RO1 (RO2), followed by corre-
sponding urban optimized scheme CO1 (CO2). Changes of
water stages in WCXY were more significant than those in HX
and Taihu Lake for CRO1 and CRO2. The urban optimized
schemes decreased the suburb water stage by 0.01e0.04 m,
the regional optimized schemes decreased by 0.03e0.14 m,
and urban and regional optimized schemes decreased by
0.06e0.15 m. However, for RO1, RO2, CRO1, and CRO2 in
Suzhou, the suburb water stage decrease was more significant
than the city water stage increase.
Therefore, research on sustainable development of water
safety should set the basin as the basic unit, and orchestrate
flood control relationships among basin, region, and city. In
order to achieve more harmonious regulation, the principles of
a part being subordinate to the whole should be followed.
From the aspect of the basin, regulation schemes should be
CO2 RO1 RO2 CRO1 CRO2
þ100%DZ 0 0 þ50%DZ þ100%DZ
0 0 50%DZ 0 100%DZ
0 50%DZ 100%DZ 50%DZ 100%DZ
 Juan Wu et al. / Water Science and Engineering 2020, 13(2): 83e94 93

Table 5
Variations of average and highest water stages of optimized schemes.
Scheme Average water stage variation (m)
Taihu Lake HX WCXY YCDM Changzhou suburbs Changzhou City Wuxi suburbs Wuxi City Suzhou suburbs Suzhou City
CO1 0 0 0 0 0 0.02 0.01 0.06 0.02 0.08
CO2 0 0.01 0 0.01 0 0.02 0.02 0.10 0.05 0.16
RO1 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.05 0.03 0.05 0.01
RO2 0.08 0.10 0.13 0.08 0.13 0.12 0.11 0.07 0.11 0.01
CRO1 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.04 0.06 0.04 0.06 0.02 0.08 0.07
CRO2 0.08 0.11 0.14 0.07 0.13 0.11 0.13 0 0.18 0.13
Scheme Highest water stage variation (m)
Taihu Lake HX WCXY YCDM Changzhou suburbs Changzhou City Wuxi suburbs Wuxi City Suzhou suburbs Suzhou City
CO1 0.01 0.01 0.06 0 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.13 0.02 0.06
CO2 0.02 0.02 0.06 0 0 0.01 0.04 0.30 0.04 0.14
RO1 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.04 0.08 0.05 0.03 0 0.05 0.04
RO2 0.09 0.09 0.08 0.08 0.14 0.09 0.07 0.01 0.08 0.01
CRO1 0.05 0.05 0.08 0.04 0.08 0.06 0.07 0.14 0.06 0.04
CRO2 0.11 0.09 0.11 0.08 0.15 0.06 0.09 0.27 0.13 0.12

modified by adoption of more flexible methods based on
regional and urban water regime variations. From the aspects
of regional and city needs, the optimized regulation scheme
should take overall consideration of highlighting flood control
priorities and sharing risks, coordinating reasonable drainage
lines of inner cities, and diversion and drainage lines along the
Yangtze River.
6. Conclusions
In this study, precipitation, water stage, net water diversion
along the Yangtze river, and inflow and outflow of Taihu Lake
using long time series data were analyzed. The optimized
regulation schemes of regional and urban projects were
explored through a hydrodynamic model. The following
conclusions were made:
(1) The HWS, LWS, and AWS of all months had increasing
trends. The HWS increased by more than 0.18 m, the LWS by
more than 0.19 m, and the AWS by more than 0.17 m in the
non-flood season after 2002. Total net inflow into Taihu Lake
increased by 18.1  108 m3, with HX and the Wangting Sluice
increasing significantly after 2002. Monthly HWS, LWS, and
AWS increased, although precipitation in the same period
decreased, which may be due to the water diversion of the
Wangyu Sluice, the WCXY sub-region, and the HX sub-region
from the Yangtze River.
(2) The Taihu Lake water stage decreased much more
slowly after 2002, becoming steadier and higher after 2002.
More inflow was concentrated in a shorter time interval,
leading to higher inflow concentration efficiency into Taihu
Lake. After construction of Wuxi urban flood control projects,
the average water stage of the inner city was 0.16e0.40 m
lower than that of suburbs in flood seasons. Flooding in inner
cities was transferred to suburbs, leading to a higher water
stage in suburbs of the WCXY sub-region. Instead of flowing
into the WCXY sub-region, flooding upstream was forced
from the HX sub-region into Taihu Lake, increasing HX
inflow into Taihu Lake.
(3) Urban and regional optimized schemes were more
significant than single regional or urban optimized schemes.
All six optimized schemes demonstrated advantages in water
stage decrease in WCXY, Taihu Lake, and suburbs along the
Jiangnan Canal (Changzhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou), among
which regional optimized schemes acquired more satisfying
effects of without increasing inner city flood control burden.
Regional schemes decreased the average Taihu Lake and
regional water stages by 0.04e0.13 m, and decreased the
highest water stage by 0.04e0.09 m in the flood season. Future
research on sustainable development of water safety should set
the basin as the basic unit, and orchestrate flood control re-
lationships between the basin, region, and city. Decreasing
diversion and drainage lines along the Yangtze River could
take an active role in flood control.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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