Growing impacts of low-flow events on vegetation dynamics in hydrologically connected wetlands downstream Yangtze River Basin after the operation of the Three Gorges Dam

Wetland vegetation is intimately related to floodplain inundations, which can be seriously affected by dam operation. Poyang Lake is the largest floodplain wetland in China and naturally connected with the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam(TGD) upstream. To understand the potential impacts of TGD on Poyang Lake wetlands, we collected remote sensing imagery acquired during dry season from 1987 to 2020 and extracted vegetation coverage data in the Ganjiang Northern-branch Delta(GND) and the Ganjiang Southern-branch Delta(GSD), using the Object-oriented Artificial Neural Network Regression. Principal components analysis, correlation analysis, and the random forest model were used to explore the interactions between vegetation extent in the two deltas and 33 hydrological variables regarding magnitude, duration, timing, and variation. The implementation of the TGD advanced and extended the low-flow periods in Poyang Lake. Vegetation coverage in the GND and GSD increased at the rates of 0.39 and 0.22 km2/year, respectively. The reservoir storage at the end of September accelerated the runoff recession in the GND and the GSD, making low-flow events more influential for vegetation dynamics and shortening the response time of vegetation to the water regime. This study provides an important reference for evaluating the impacts of dam engineering on downstream wetlands.