Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Ecosystem Ecology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1534674
This article is part of the Research Topic Aquatic Environment Changes of Vegetated Regions in Rivers, Marshes, and Coastal Regions View all 3 articles

Hydrological drought in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (China): A 70-year data analysis

Provisionally accepted
Hua Ge Hua Ge 1Lingling Zhu Lingling Zhu 2*Bing Mao Bing Mao 1
  • 1 Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute (CRSRI), Wuhan, China
  • 2 Bureau of Hydrology, Changjiang Water Resources Commission, Wuhan, Hebei Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The combined impact of climate change and human activity has brought uncertainty regarding hydrological drought in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (LYR), thereby threatening the security of regional water resources. To address this uncertainty, based on data from over 70 years, the trends, mutations, and causes of hydrological drought in the LYR were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall test method. The results of this study show that the most extreme annual hydrological drought situation defined by the daily minimum value improved, but the scenario defined by the monthly average intensified in September and October after the flood season, with a mutation in the 2000s after the Three Gorges Reservoir. The continuous decline in water availability during the flood season and the water storage of reservoirs after flooding made 2022 the most severe drought period in nearly 70 years. The rapid storage of reservoirs after flooding has promoted hydrological droughts in the LYR. In future scenarios, the impact of riverbed cutting on hydrological drought should be comprehensively evaluated, and the effects of future tide level changes under global climate change conditions should be measured.

    Keywords: Hydrological drought, trend and mutation, Lower Yangtze River, Extreme drought, downstream reservoir

    Received: 26 Nov 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Ge, Zhu and Mao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lingling Zhu, Bureau of Hydrology, Changjiang Water Resources Commission, Wuhan, Hebei Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.