Response of Hydrodynamics and Water-quality Conditions to Climate Change in a Shallow Lake

Lake water resources operation and water quality management come up with higher challenges due to climate change. The frequency and intensity of extreme hydrological events are increasing under global warming, which may directly lead to more uncertainty and complexity for hydrodynamic and water-quality conditions in large shallow lake. However, studies about effects of climate change on lake hydrodynamic and water-quality conditions are not enough. Thus, a coupled model is es-tablished to investigate the potential responses of lake water level, flow field and pollutant migra-tion to the changing climatic factors. The results imply that water flow capacity and self-purification in the Hongze Lake can be improved by west, northwest, north, south and southeast winds indi-cating wind filed change has a great effect on the hydrodynamic and water-quality conditions in large shallow lake. It is further observed that both hydrodynamics and water quality are more sensitive to rainfall change than to temperature change; compared to the effect from temperature and rainfall, the effect from wind field appear to be more pronounced. Moreover, the results verify the feasibility of coupling basin hydrological model with lake hydrodynamic and water quality model. To the best of knowledge, the coupled model should not be used until independent calibra-tions and verifications for hydrodynamics and water quality modeling, the hydrological model and the coupled model.