Cihuaixin River Water Conservancy Scenic Area

Cihuaixin River Water Conservancy Scenic Area

The Cihuaixin River Water Conservancy Scenic Area is a national water conservancy scenic area.

The Cihuaixin River Water Conservancy Scenic Area is located on the banks of the Huai River in Fengtai County, Anhui Province, and is built along the Cihuaixin River (Fengtai section).

The scenic area is a natural river-lake type water conservancy scenic area. Fengtai County has long been known as the "Wing of Huainan and the Throat of Zhoulai." Relying on the Cihuaixin River and centered around a vast forest belt covering tens of thousands of acres, the area tells the story of the "18 Famous Entrepreneurs of Fengtai," celebrating the achievements of people-oriented water conservancy and ecological civilization construction. The scenic area boasts a beautiful environment, abundant landscape resources, well-developed internal transportation and other infrastructure, and strong reception capacity. Its development of ecological water conservancy has been featured multiple times on CCTV’s "Xinwen Lianbo" and reported by provincial and municipal media.

The Cihuaixin River is a strategic key project determined in the 1971 Huai River management plan for comprehensive utilization including flood control, drainage, irrigation, and navigation.

The Cihuaixin River starts from Chhepu in the Shaying River basin, passes through Fuyang, Mengcheng, Lixin, Fengtai, Huainan, and Huaiyuan—spanning four counties and two cities—and joins the Huai River upstream of Jingshankou in Huaiyuan County, with a total length of 134.2 kilometers. It includes the interception of the upper reaches of the Heizi River and the Xifei River, covering a total drainage area of 7,127 square kilometers. The drainage capacities of the Cihuaixin River above and below the Xifei River are 1,400 cubic meters per second and 1,800 cubic meters per second, respectively. It is designed to divert 2,000 cubic meters per second of floodwater from the Ying River, with a lower section flood discharge capacity of 2,400 cubic meters per second. The Cihuaixin River is one of the larger newly excavated artificial waterways since the Huai River management project. Construction began in 1971 and was completed in 1991, with a total investment of 544 million yuan.

Project Details:

The project includes the excavation of a 130-kilometer-long canal on flat land, the construction of four hubs—Shangqiao, Kandian, Cha'hua, and Chihépù—each equipped with control gates and five-level navigation locks. Pumping stations with capacities of 120 and 40 cubic meters per second were built at Shangqiao and Kandian, respectively. Nine large bridges were constructed along the river, along with management projects for the tributaries of the Chihé River and the Xifei River.

Objectives:

The primary purpose of using the Cihuaixin River for flood diversion is to alleviate the flood control pressure on the Huai River North Dyke above the Cihuaixin River outlet and the left dyke of the Ying River, while also ensuring the flood safety of the Huai River North Dyke downstream of the Woh River mouth.

According to the Cihuaixin River control and operation measures, no flood diversion is generally carried out when the water level at Zhengyangguan is below 24.0 meters. When the water level at Zhengyangguan is forecasted to approach the warning level of 24.0 meters, the Cihuaixin River may conduct flood diversion as appropriate based on the inflow from the Ying River, but such diversion must ensure the flood safety of the Huai River North Dyke downstream of the Woh River mouth.

Achievements:

The completion of the Cihuaixin River has reduced the flood burden on the main stream of the Huai River between Zhengyangguan and Huaiyuan. In coordination with the management of tributaries, it has also helped raise the flood control standard of the Ying River to a 20-year recurrence interval, alleviated the threat of backflow from the Ying River to the Heizi River, and mitigated flooding in the low-lying areas downstream of the Xifei River. The direct drainage benefit covers 3.6 million mu of land, with an effective irrigated area of 1.31 million mu. It has also shortened the shipping distance between Fuyang and Bengbu by 100 kilometers.

Responsible Authority:

The dispatching of the Cihuaixin River is managed by the Anhui Provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Main Issues:

Severe siltation in the upper section of the canal has somewhat affected its designed flood diversion capacity. The average siltation height in the inlet channel above the Chihépù gate is about 3 meters, with 4.3 meters on the left and 1.5 meters on the right, resulting in skewed flow. The inlet channel below the gate generally has siltation of 0.3–0.4 meters, up to a maximum of 0.8 meters. The Cha'hua gate has siltation of 1.0 meter above and 0.8 meter below. The Kandian gate has virtually no siltation above. The total silt volume is approximately 940,000 cubic meters. The causes of siltation include the high sediment content of the Ying River, the backflow zone in the inlet channel above the Chihépù gate, the misalignment of the intersection angle between the inlet channel and the Ying River, and the resulting skewed flow of diverted floodwater.