Project Overview
Pengxi River, a tributary of the Yangtze, in the Three Gorges Reservoir, a high impacted ecosystem | China Three Gorges Reservoir, the largest one in China. Large scale seasonal operation for hydropower production and flood control | Water supply; Agriculture; Biological primary production; Biodiversity maintenance; Environmental purification
Ecosystem Services
Provisioning
- Provisioning Services are ecosystem services that describe the material or energy outputs from ecosystems. They include food, water and other resources.
- Food: Ecosystems provide the conditions for growing food. Food comes principally from managed agro-ecosystems but marine and freshwater systems or forests also provide food for human consumption. Wild foods from forests are often underestimated.
- Fresh water: Ecosystems play a vital role in the global hydrological cycle, as they regulate the flow and purification of water. Vegetation and forests influence the quantity of water available locally.
Regulating
- Regulating Services are the services that ecosystems provide by acting as regulators eg. regulating the quality of air and soil or by providing flood and disease control.
Habitat / Supporting
- Ecosystem services "that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services". These include services such as nutrient recycling, primary production and soil formation.
- Habitats for species: Habitats provide everything that an individual plant or animal needs to survive: food; water; and shelter. Each ecosystem provides different habitats that can be essential for a species’ lifecycle. Migratory species including birds, fish, mammals and insects all depend upon different ecosystems during their movements.
- Maintenance of genetic diversity: Genetic diversity is the variety of genes between and within species populations. Genetic diversity distinguishes different breeds or races from each other thus providing the basis for locally well-adapted cultivars and a gene pool for further developing commercial crops and livestock. Some habitats have an exceptionally high number of species which makes them more genetically diverse than others and are known as ‘biodiversity hotspots’.
Cultural
- Cultural Services corresponds nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences.
Major Issues
1) Droughts: Drying, cracking and erosion
1) Droughts: Drying, cracking and erosion
Sedimentation of floating solid wastes
Sedimentation of floating solid wastes
2) Intensive land use: Intensive and unrestricted
2) Intensive land use: Intensive and unrestricted farming practice, in turn stimulate erosion and nutrients release
3) Vegetation recover and re-flooded periodically: OM
3) Vegetation recover and re-flooded periodically: OM and nutrients release
EH Engineering Solutions
Human-induced, low-intensity restoration (NbS)“phytotechnology”：Mulberry or willow bushses
Human-induced, low-intensity restoration (NbS)“phytotechnology”：Mulberry or willow bushses Limited crop planting
Limited free livestock pasturing
Limited free livestock pasturing
Low-cost wastewater treatment infrastructure
Low-cost wastewater treatment infrastructure
restoring the terrestrial community adaptive to reservoir
restoring the terrestrial community adaptive to reservoir operation, and optimize human activity in reservoir drawdown area
“pulse effect” during floods 20 days to
“pulse effect” during floods 20 days to 30 days flooded mainly affect 160m or below
Project Activities
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Restore shoreline community, increase the capability of nutrients removal and upgrade landscape
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Limit and optimize anthropogenic activities, in particular farming practice in reservoir drawdown area
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Optimize reservoir operation strategy
Expected Outcomes
Reduce nutrients input and increase the water quality | Reduce the frequency of algal blooms in the demo sites | Optimized agriculture activity