Assessing the Future Water and Energy Security of a Regulated River Basin with a Coupled Land Surface and Hydrologic Model

To address the water-related issues faced by humans, planning and construction of dams, water diversion projects, other infrastructures have been continuously adopted decision makers worldwide. This is especially case for Yalong River Basin (YRB) in China, which expected to be one most regulated rivers due reservoir planned South-to-North Water Diversion project. understand potential impact these on resources hydropower production basin downstream areas, we employ a land surface–hydrologic model with explicit representations dam operation diversions order quantify future energy security YRB. In particular, conceptual scheme hydropower-optimized are employed predict release, storage generation YRB, respectively. Results indicate that reservoirs can noticeable, cumulative effects enhancing reducing wet season streamflow 19% increasing dry 66%. The result an overall decrease streamflow, while fully mitigate decline streamflow. likely 16% 10% conventional optimized schemes, respectively, suggests adaptation rules alone cannot reverse electricity production. Our findings provide implications sustainable resource management.