Liu et al. (2026) How Much Water Can Be Seasonally Buffered by China's Largest Floodplain Lake? A Refined Estimate From SWOT

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-03
• Authors: Lingyang Liu, Kai Liu, Jida Wang, Tan Chen, Pengfei Zhan, Yi Peng, Zhiqiang Tan, Chunqiao Song
• DOI: 10.1029/2026gl125367

Research Groups

• Hydrology and Water Resources Laboratory (HWRL), Poyang Lake Basin Research Center (PLBRC)
• Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine (UCI)

Short Summary

This study presents a novel framework for estimating the seasonal buffering capacity of floodplain lakes using satellite data from the SWOT mission. The framework reveals that Poyang Lake has a significant role in regional hydrology by mitigating floods and sustaining wetland ecosystems.

Objective

• Investigate the feasibility of using SWOT-based Floodplain Lake water volume and Storage change (SWOT-FLASH) framework to estimate the seasonal buffering capacity of complex river-floodplain lake systems.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Poyang Lake Basin, China
• Temporal Scale: July 2023 to July 2025

Methodology and Data

• Models used: SWOT-FLASH framework
• Data sources: Satellite data from the SWOT mission, reconstructed full-lake bathymetry

Main Results

• Estimated seasonal buffering capacity of Poyang Lake: 22.71 ± 1.96 km^3 (accounting for 95.10% of maximum lake water storage)
• Physically realistic tool for quantifying lake water storage dynamics in complex river-floodplain lake systems worldwide

Contributions

• Introduces a novel framework for estimating the seasonal buffering capacity of floodplain lakes using satellite data from the SWOT mission.
• Reveals the critical regional flood-mitigation role of Poyang Lake.

Funding

• National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant number: 52279201

Citation

@article{Liu2026How,
  author = {Liu, Lingyang and Liu, Kai and Wang, Jida and Chen, Tan and Zhan, Pengfei and Peng, Yi and Tan, Zhiqiang and Song, Chunqiao},
  title = {How Much Water Can Be Seasonally Buffered by China's Largest Floodplain Lake? A Refined Estimate From SWOT},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2026gl125367},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2026gl125367}
}