Proceedings of the 2025 8th International Conference on Civil Architecture, Hydropower and Engineering Management (CAHEM 2025)

Analysis and Determination of the Drought Warning Water Level for Zihong Reservoir

Authors
Zhongbo Zhang1, *, Simin Geng2, Xiaoyan He1, Haijun Yu1, Guangyuan Kan1, Yu Hou1
1China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China
2Development Research Center, Ministry of Water Resources, Beijing, 100038, China
*Corresponding author. Email: 364687536@qq.com
Corresponding Author
Zhongbo Zhang
Available Online 26 February 2026.
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_26How to use a DOI?
Keywords
drought warning water level; reservoir; water supply tasks; water demand
Abstract

The drought warning water level serves as a key indicator for drought early warning and sustainable water resource management, and prevents threats to the stable operation of the water supply system when the reservoir water level drops due to the continuous decrease in inflow runoff. This indicator establishes a quantitative threshold for drought early warning; when the actual reservoir water level approaches or reaches this critical value, an emergency response procedure is triggered. By quickly activating the drought prevention plan mechanism, the loss caused by drought is minimized. Scientifically and reasonably defining this key parameter will provide technical support for the accurate implementation of drought resistance and mitigation actions. To determine a reasonable drought warning water level that can scientifically guide drought mitigation and disaster reduction efforts, and facilitate timely drought alerts and management decisions, it is essential to comprehensively consider the reservoir’s main functions and its major water use demands. These include the primary water supply tasks, such as urban and rural water supply, industrial production, irrigation water, navigation, and environmental flow. The maximum water demand among these is used as the determining basis, combined with an analysis of the designed inflow conditions. Meanwhile, the determined drought warning water level should be explicit, practical, and based on easily monitored and accessible data. Using the Zihong Reservoir in Shanxi Province as an example, the typical-drought-year method, maximum-value method, composite method, and other approaches were applied to calculate the drought warning water level as 878.05 m, the drought warning storage as 9.54 million m3, and the drought warning period as April to July. The analytical results can provide a reference for regional drought defense and joint operation management.

Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2025 8th International Conference on Civil Architecture, Hydropower and Engineering Management (CAHEM 2025)
Series
Advances in Engineering Research
Publication Date
26 February 2026
ISBN
978-94-6239-600-5
ISSN
2352-5401
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_26How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Zhongbo Zhang
AU  - Simin Geng
AU  - Xiaoyan He
AU  - Haijun Yu
AU  - Guangyuan Kan
AU  - Yu Hou
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - Analysis and Determination of the Drought Warning Water Level for Zihong Reservoir
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 8th International Conference on Civil Architecture, Hydropower and Engineering Management (CAHEM 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 266
EP  - 278
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_26
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_26
ID  - Zhang2026
ER  -