Detecting Multi-Purpose Reservoir Operation Induced Time-Frequency Alteration Using Wavelet Transform

It is well recognized that natural flow variability is an inherent characteristic of rivers. Altered natural flow regime caused by anthropogenic regulations would threaten ecosystem biodiversity and deteriorate riverine health. Wavelet transform is a newly-developed tool that extracts dominant modes of variability by decomposing a non-stationary series into time-frequency space, which can be used to detect hydrologic alteration at various scales caused by reservoir operation. Continuous wavelet transform is simultaneously applied to recorded hourly inflow and outflow series of 1998–2008 for the Feitsui Reservoir located in northern Taiwan. Differences between wavelet power spectrum obtained for outflow and inflow series denote severity of hydrologic alteration. Greater spectral alteration is observed at less-than-1-day scales due to peak-load hydropower releases. The spectral alteration gradually declines with increasing scales. Different variation patterns for the yearly time-averaged spectral difference also reveal that the altered spectrum depends on hydrologic conditions. The index of spectral alteration (ISA), defined as the mean absolute deviations of power spectrum for all scales over a certain time period, is proposed to quantitatively assess severity of altered natural flow regime. ISA of 5 can be roughly recognized as the division of dry and non-dry years for the Feitsui Reservoir case. The obtained results offer decision makers useful information to adopt adaptive operating strategies to mitigate negative impacts of altered natural flow regime and derive optimal trade-off between human and environmental needs.