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Intelligent Regulation and Adaptive Management of Complex River Basin Systems

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Resources Management, Policy and Governance".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2026 | Viewed by 1548

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Hydraulics, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Nanjing 210029, China
Interests: reservoir operation; water resource evolution; hydrological non-uniformity; attribution analysis; extreme wet–dry events; water resource risk analysis; hydrological and hydrodynamic modeling; multi-energy complementarity of hydropower, wind, photovoltaic, and energy storage; comprehensive management of rivers and lakes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

River basins, as complex socio-hydrological systems, face challenges including climate-driven hydrological non-stationarity, extreme rainstorms/droughts, wetland degradation, and new energy integration complexities. Central to these issues are imbalances in water resources, the environment, and ecology (“three waters”) across reservoirs, lakes, and river networks with sluice-pump systems. This Special Issue seeks innovations in intelligent, adaptive management to address these challenges.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Coupled “three-waters” modeling and ecological responses in reservoir–lake–river systems;
  • Multi-objective adaptive scheduling for hydropower cascades under non-stationary runoff and wind–solar constraints;
  • Storm similarity-based flood/drought early warning and smart sluice–pump control;
  • Joint reservoir–lake strategies for flood–drought–water quality hazard coupling;
  • Digital twin/AI tools for complex system regulation;
  • Climate-adaptive water allocation and cross-unit coordination.

Dr. Yu Zhang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • river basin socio-hydrological system
  • extreme hydrological events and non-stationarity (extreme rainstorms/droughts)
  • three-waters coupling (water resources–environment–ecology)
  • intelligent adaptive management
  • reservoir–lake–river system
  • digital twin and AI technologies
  • climate-adaptive water resource allocation

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 4025 KB  
Article
Construction of a “Three-Waters” Evaluation Indicator System: A Meta-Analysis
by Jiayi Xu, Jiangyu Dai, Xiufeng Wu and Shiqiang Wu
Water 2026, 18(8), 928; https://doi.org/10.3390/w18080928 - 13 Apr 2026
Viewed by 400
Abstract
The synergistic management of water resources, the water environment, and the water ecology system (“Three-waters” system) is fundamental to ensuring regional water security and advancing sustainable development. However, existing evaluation indicator systems rely on expert experience and lack quantitative screening criteria, leading to [...] Read more.
The synergistic management of water resources, the water environment, and the water ecology system (“Three-waters” system) is fundamental to ensuring regional water security and advancing sustainable development. However, existing evaluation indicator systems rely on expert experience and lack quantitative screening criteria, leading to indicator overlap and insufficient representativeness, which restricts the scientificity of management decisions. The study proposes a method integrating meta-analysis with case verification to construct an indicator system. A systematic review of 60 publications (1970–2024) from the Web of Science was conducted and a random effects model was used to merge effect sizes and quantify correlations and heterogeneity between indicators and the “Three-waters” system. The results indicate that the industrial water use proportion (R = −0.77) is the main stress factor in the water resources system, the negative effect of total hardness (R = −0.91) is the most significant in the water environment system, the contribution of the benthic diversity index (R = 0.90) is the most prominent in the water ecology system and vegetation coverage (R = 0.74) exhibits a strong positive effect in the social economic system. The case verification confirms the indicator system established under this method is consistent with the actual situation. This study provides methodological support for system diagnosis, coordinated regulation, and policy formulation, promoting the transformation from single-element to systemic water management. Full article
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25 pages, 1829 KB  
Article
A Water Resources Scheduling Model for Complex Water Networks Considering Multi-Objective Coordination
by Hui Bu, Chun Pan, Chunyang Liu, Yu Zhu, Zhuowei Yin, Zhengya Liu and Yu Zhang
Water 2026, 18(1), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/w18010124 - 5 Jan 2026
Viewed by 635
Abstract
Complex water networks face prominent contradictions among flood control, water supply, and ecological protection, and traditional scheduling models struggle to address multi-dimensional water security challenges. To solve this problem, this study proposes a multi-objective coordinated water resources scheduling model for complex water networks, [...] Read more.
Complex water networks face prominent contradictions among flood control, water supply, and ecological protection, and traditional scheduling models struggle to address multi-dimensional water security challenges. To solve this problem, this study proposes a multi-objective coordinated water resources scheduling model for complex water networks, taking the Taihu Lake Basin as a typical case. First, a multi-objective optimization indicator system covering flood control, water supply, and aquatic ecological environment was constructed, including 12 key indicators such as drainage efficiency of key outflow hubs and water supply guarantee rate. Second, a dynamic variable weighting strategy was adopted to convert the multi-objective optimization problem into a single-objective one by adjusting indicator weights according to different scheduling periods. Finally, a combined solving mode integrating a basin water quantity-quality model and a joint scheduling decision model was established, optimized using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Under the 1991-Type 100-Year Return Period Rainfall scenario, three scheduling schemes were designed: a basic scheduling scheme and two enhanced discharge schemes modified by lowering the drainage threshold of the Xinmeng River Project. Simulation and decision results show that the enhanced discharge scheme with the lowest drainage threshold achieves the optimal performance with an objective function value of 98.8. Compared with the basic scheme, it extends the flood season drainage days of the Jiepai Hub from 32 to 43 days, increases the average flood season discharge of the Xinmeng River to the Yangtze River by 9.5%, and reduces the maximum water levels of Wangmuguan, Fangqian, Jintan, and Changzhou (III) stations by 5 cm, 5 cm, 4 cm, and 4 cm, respectively. This model effectively overcomes technical bottlenecks such as conflicting multi-objectives and complex water system structures, providing theoretical and technical support for multi-objective coordinated scheduling of water resources in complex water networks. Full article
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