Analysis of Socio-Hydrological Evolution Processes Based on a Modeling Approach in the Upper Reaches of the Han River in China

Abstract

The Han River is the water source of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project and the “Han River to Wei River Water Diversion Project” in China. In order to ensure that the water quality and quantity are sufficient for the water diversion project, the natural forest protection project, river chief system and other measures have been implemented in the Han River by the government. At the same time, several large reservoirs have been built in the Han River basin and perform the functions of water supply and hydropower generation, which is an important type of clean power. Under the influence of human activities, the coupling interaction between humans and water in the upper reach of the Han River drives the socio-hydrological evolution process. In this study, from the perspective of socio-hydrology, a model of socio-hydrological evolution (SHE) in the Han River in southern Shaanxi was built to simulate the potential evolution path of the socio-hydrological system and determine possible measures for the sustainable governance of the river basin. By adjusting the model parameters, four future scenarios were established: natural continuation, economic development, environmental protection and industrial adjustment scenarios. Taking 2018 as the base year, the evolution of socio-hydrology in the upper reaches of the Han River was predicted under the four scenarios from 2019 to 2045. The simulation results show that: (1) In the entire study area, except for domestic water, the water consumption of other departments show an upward or stable trend. There are differences in water consumption changes in the upper and lower sections, which are related to the different socio-economic conditions. (2) Comparing different development scenarios, the industrial adjustment and environmental protection scenarios are superior to the other scenarios. Natural continuation and economic development scenarios appear to be unfavorable for the sustainability of water resources and the economy. (3) In addition, based on the development scenarios, some policy suggestions are put forward, such as reducing the irrigation water quota, appropriately adjusting the industrial structure and promoting the growth of the urban population and the development of urbanization.

Evaluation of the Coupled Coordination of the Water–Energy–Food–Ecology System Based on the Sustainable Development Goals in the Upper Han River of China

“…After the implementation of the Han-To-Wei Water Diversion Project in the next several years, the water resources situation will change, and a change in the ecosystem and energy system will follow it. This is a typical interaction of socio-hydrological processes and can be studied based on socio-hydrological modeling [25].…”

“…The data used in this study came from the Shaanxi Province Water Resources Bulletin, the China Urban Statistical Yearbook, the National Economic and Social Development Statistical Bulletin of each district and county from 2000 to 2021 [25,26], the ERA5-Land dataset [27], and the China Natural Flow Grid Point dataset [28]. To increase the completeness of the data, some missing data are converted from province data to county data based on the area percentages of the counties.…”

System dynamics simulation and regulation of human-water system coevolution in Northwest China

“…Referring to the related research of , Zhang et al (2019), andZhao et al (2021), according to the quantitative relationships between variables in the SD model structure above, a total of 51 equations were involved in the model. The names and units of the main variables in the model and the SD equations, restricted by the length limit of this paper, appear in Table 1.…”

Historic Socio-Hydromorphology Co-Evolution in the Delta of Neretva

“…A wide range of quantitative and qualitative tools and methods have been applied to overcome challenges dealing with the complex natural-human system and historical development issues (bottom-up strategies) and with the uncertainty of the results (top-down strategies) [6]. Socio-hydrological systems like river basins and phenomena that involve emergent patterns in the time domain are mostly analyzed [7][8][9]. For this reason, it is necessary, in the river system or its specific part, to assess the co-evolution and self-organization of the social-hydrological system driven by interactions and feedback using a simple expletory model [10].…”