Evaluation of the water pollution risk of dam and dike-break floods in the inundated area

Abstract

The inundated area of dam and dike-break floods includes various types of land and factories that release considerable amounts of pollutants into floods, causing serious water pollution and further endangering human health. Many pollution sources and factors affect the water pollution risk in inundated areas. Accurate assessment of the water pollution risk for dam and dike-break floods enables people to take measures in advance to reduce public health problems. The existing evaluation methods cannot effectively analyze the water pollution risk for dam and dike-break floods because partial or all pollution sources and influencing factors are ignored. The main factors affecting flood water quality were summarized into point source (PS), non-point source (NPS), flood depth, velocity, duration, and temperature. The water pollution risk caused by NPSs and PSs were quantified, as well as the impact of all main factors on water pollution risk. The evaluation model proposed for water pollution risk in inundated areas of dam and dike-break floods considers all pollution sources and influencing factors. The WPR was proposed to represent the water pollution risk value. The dam-break flood of Luhun Reservoir was simulated to verify the feasibility of the evaluation model. We concluded that (1) WPR varied with space and time in the inundated area and was seriously affected by PS in local areas; (2) the annual average WPR of different land use types from high to low were construction land, cropland, urban, water, rural area, woodland, and grassland. The evaluation model can be used to evaluate the water pollution risk for dam and dike-break floods at macro and micro scales. People can use this method to evaluate the impact, range, and degree of specific pollution sources or pollutants in the inundated area, thus allowing for measures to be taken in advance to reduce associated damages.

Keywords: Environmental flood risk; Flood parameters; Non-point source; Point source; Temperature; Water quality.