Abstract

Pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) can modify reservoir evaporation in arid regions by altering water-level dynamics, surface-area exposure, and thermal exchange between reservoirs. This study quantifies operation-induced evaporation changes at the Fukang PSH station in Xinjiang, China, using a one-dimensional lumped hydrodynamic–thermal model driven by hourly station observations and ERA5 reanalysis for 2024. A four-scenario factorial design separates thermal, surface-area, and interaction effects within a unified water energy framework. Under station forcing, fully coupled operation reduces annual system-scale evaporation from 135.36 × 104 m3 to 115.45 × 104 m3, corresponding to a net reduction of 19.91 × 104 m3 (14.7%). Energy-budget analysis identifies advective heat transport as the main pathway linking dispatch, reservoir thermal evolution, and evaporation response, with annual cumulative values of +205 TJ in the upper reservoir and −333 TJ in the lower reservoir. Dispatch-regime experiments further show that stronger exchange-flow operation does not necessarily increase evaporation reduction: the low, baseline, and enhanced schedules produce system-scale net changes of 37.70 × 104 m3, 19.91 × 104 m3, and −3.41 × 104 m3, respectively. These results indicate that evaporation effects in arid-region PSH systems depend on the timing of surface-area exposure relative to local evaporative demand, rather than on exchange-flow magnitude or operating duration alone.

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