Ephemeral rivers commonly occur in regions with a shortage of water resources, and their channel configuration tends to change substantially owing to long drying times and artificial sand extraction. During short-term water conveyance, water storage in large potholes and leakage along the dry riverbed retards the flow, which is detrimental for the river landscape and ecological water demand. The objective of this study is to evaluate the flow process corresponding to a certain release scheme. A coupled dynamic leakage loss and flood routing model was established to predict the flood routing distance for dry rivers with potholes and strong leakage. The model mainly includes three sub-models of flow dynamics, dynamic leakage loss and water balance along multiple cross sections of the river channel. The water head was dominated by flow velocity and the overflow from potholes. The model was applied to Yongding River, a typical ephemeral river in northern China, and the model parameters were calibrated and verified using monitoring data from ecological water releases into the Yongding River in 2019 and 2020, thus, making the model more stable and reliable. Finally, the model was used to evaluate the impact of cross section optimization and pothole treatment on the flow process. This study can provide scientific guidance for ecological water conveyance and the ecological restoration of ephemeral rivers.
Keywords: ephemeral river; flood routing model; leakage losses; potholes; unsteady flow.