Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica ›› 2016, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (10): 1148-1156.doi: 10.11947/j.AGCS.2016.20160016

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A Water Storage Loading Model by SRTM-DEM Data and Surface Response Simulation of Gravity and Deformation in the Three Gorges Reservoir of China

WANG Linsong1,2, CHEN Chao1,2, MA Xian2, DU Jinsong2   

  1. 1. Three Gorges Research Center for Geo-hazard, Ministry of Education, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China;
    2. Hubei Subsurface Multi-scale Imaging Key Laboratory, Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
  • Received:2016-01-15 Revised:2016-04-19 Online:2016-10-20 Published:2016-11-08
  • Supported by:

    The Natural Science Foundation of China(No.41504065);China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project(No.2014T70753);Hubei Province Natural Science Foundation of China(No. 2014CFB170);The China University of Geosciences(CUG) Hubei Subsurface Multi-scale Imaging Lab(No. SMIL-2014-09)

Abstract:

This paper aims to study relationships between water loading and its surface responses of gravity and crustal deformation over the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) according to time-varying water level data. Based on congruent relationship between high resolution SRTM-DEM data and topography of spatial boundaries of main channel and tributaries, we built a new water storage loading model under different water level in the TGR. Besides, mathematical expressions between water areas, volumes and water level data were fitted by power law relationships. Using new constructed water storage loading model, the elastic load response equation and mascon fitting method, we modelled the ground spatial distribution of the gravity and displacement fields when water level impoundment on the second and the third stages of the TGR. Meanwhile, time-varying water storage capacity model was obtained by Stokes spherical harmonic analysis (degree and order up to 60), and our results are analyzed with monitoring results from the GRACE data. GRACE-derived Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) after using output from the CLM4.5 hydrology model shows very good agreement with the TGR prediction, but the difference between GRACE-derived and mascon fitting results may contain the groundwater seepage effect under huge water load pressure.The modelling results of this study will provide important basis of comparative analysis and related corrections to observations, and therefore, will be helpful to reveal masked relationships between the activities of landslips and reservoir induced earthquakes with the variation of reservoir's water loading.

Key words: the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), SRTM-DEM data, water storage loading mode, gravity and deformation

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