Hydropower Functional Zoning with Crowdsourced Geospatial Data: A Case Study in Sichuan Province

Abstract

Hydro-electric development has received increasing attention due to its characteristics of ecological and environmental protection. In addition, aquatic ecological functional zoning plays a key role in the aquatic ecological management in the basin because of its ecological background and basic unit. However, hydropower function has seldom been considered in aquatic ecological functional zoning. This research proposes a framework for hydropower functional zoning on the aquatic-and-terrestrial-coupled ecosystem function with crowdsourced geospatial data and the spatial-clustering method. Sichuan Province was selected as the research area due to its critical hydroelectric position in China, and it is divided into 53 level 3 zones, 27 level 2 aquatic ecological functional zones, and 17 level 1 ecological functional zones. Focusing on the results of the hydropower functional zoning, the ecological-environmental problem of each zoning and the hydroelectric development in the future are discussed. The soil-erosion area in Sichuan Province did not overlap with the hydroelectric-construction-affected zones. Further, water pollution occurred in construction zones and core affected zones of the Fu River Basin and the Jialing River Basin. In the next 10 years, the middle and upper reaches of the trunk of the Ya-lung River will become key areas for hydropower-engineering projects. This research provides new insight into the development of various regional hydropower projects and the sustainable management of watersheds, which is helpful for the construction of new hydroelectric-energy development.