Digital twins are transforming the paradigm of water management and water hazard mitigation globally, facilitating more effective governance. However, comprehensive digitalisation at the basin scale still faces major challenges in data, modelling, policy incentives, and, most critically, widespread inequity. This article outlines a framework for building widely applicable digital-twin basins and addressing the main obstacles. Ensuring high-quality water data requires more comprehensive and well-controlled data aggregation and provision protocols. Significant improvements to the existing data infrastructure are necessary to support this effort. Most existing water models are not effectively integrated and do not include multi-physics to reflect all essential correlated physical processes at the basin scale. The current advancement in physics-informed data-driven approaches may provide a solution. Furthermore, global initiatives are critical to reducing major inequity in less developed regions, particularly the Global South, during digitalisation. It is imperative that researchers, practitioners and policymakers take decisive actions to prioritise research and allocate resources to foster transboundary collaborations towards integrated and extensive digital-twin basin systems, promoting the sustainability and resilience of global water resources.

Manning’s roughness coefficient(n) is considered a key parameter in a one-dimensional (1D) hydrodynamic model. However, it is highly variable and time- and site- dependent. Further, identifying proper n values is not easy, especially in plain looped river network areas. Therefore, a more systematic approach is needed. This study proposes a coupled optimization-simulation model to systematically estimate the spatial distribution of n values. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and InfoWorks Integrated Catchment Modelling (ICM) software were integrated to solve the objective function and hydraulic process, respectively. Crisscrossing rivers were partitioned into river reaches that were each assumed to have a uniform and constant Manning’s roughness coefficient according to their network topology and cross-section variation. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was implemented to determine the weights of measured data from different gauging stations, and a large difference in the spatial distribution of the sensitivity index illustrated the importance of identifying the weights of multiple stations. Then, a systematic approach was applied to estimate the n values in the Changshu Grand Polder Area (CGPA), which is crisscrossed by 150 rivers, under the water diversion stage. The calculation statistics and efficiency indicated that the proposed method performs well for model calibration.

The evaluation index system of urban aquatic ecosystem health is of great significance for the assessment and management of urban river networks, and for urban development planning. In this paper, the concept of urban aquatic ecosystem health was analyzed by the relationship between human, city and aquatic ecosystem, and its evaluation index system was established from environmental conditions, ecological construction, and social service. In addition, the weight value of each index was calculated by the analytic hierarchy process, and the grading standard of each index was set. Jiading New City, a typical city of the river network plain area in Yangtze River delta, was selected as the aquatic ecosystem health evaluation sample. The fuzzy comprehensive method was used to evaluate the aquatic ecosystem health of Jiading New City. The results indicated that the water ecosystem health of Jiading New City reached the “good” level. For the criterion level, environmental conditions and ecological construction reached the “good” level, and social services reached the “excellent” level. For the indicator level, most indicators reached “good” and “excellent” levels, but the river complexity and benthic macroinvertebrate diversity are still in the “poor” state, which indicates that the aquatic environment has greatly improved, but the aquatic ecosystem has not been fully restored. Results suggested that river complexity and biodiversity should be increased in urban construction planning. The evaluation index system established in this paper can be used to reflect the urban aquatic ecosystem health conditions in river network plain areas.

This study reviewed the existing experience of implementing the nation-wide freshwater health evaluation in China and around the world and proposes a new framework that works in collaboration with the River Chief System (RCS). The institutional context of China with intertwined political and scientific considerations makes it essential to establish a concise and quantitative approach to assess the effectiveness of the RCS as well as local freshwater health conditions that can be easily understood by non-experts for decision-making. To fulfil this objective, we reconstructed the indicator categories based on the best practices in major western countries and the existing regional standards in China. The new indicator framework includes two main aspects: Ecosystem integrity (physical habitat, water quantity, water quality, and aquatic life) and non-ecological performance (social services and water governance). Specifically, the non-ecological attributes of freshwaters are in accordance with the purposes of the RCS and are usually ignored in many countries. The final health grade for a specific water body is determined by a weighted averaging method; this grade is the core element of an evaluation protocol designed to produce reliable data for adaptable water resources governance in China. The research findings in this study will also be integrated into the new national standard to be issued by the Ministry of Water Resources of China in late 2020.

Extreme flood occurrences are becoming increasingly common due to global climate change, with coastal cities being more vulnerable to compound flood disasters. In addition to excessive precipitation and upstream river discharge, storm surge can complicate the flood disaster process and increase the hazard of urban flooding. This study proposed an integrated trivariate-dimensional statistical and hydrodynamic modeling approach for assessing the compound flood hazard associated with extreme storm surges, precipitation events, and upstream river discharge. An innovative trivariate copula joint modeling and the frequency amplification method were used to simulate designed values under different return periods (RPs), considering the correlation of the three factors. The results show remarkable differences between the inundated areas of flood events with trivariate drivers and a single driver under the same RPs, indicating that univariate frequency values are insufficient to manage flood threats in compound flood events. The proposed method provides guidelines for comprehending the compound flood process and designing flood control projects in coastal cities.

The enormous energy carried by discharged water poses a serious threat to the Piano Key Weir (PKW) and its downstream hydraulic structures. However, previous research on energy dissipation in PKWs has mainly focused downstream effects, and the research methods have been largely limited to physical model experiments. To deeply investigate the discharge capacity and hydraulic characteristics of PKW, this study established a PKW model with universally applicable geometric parameters. By combining physical model experiments and numerical simulations, the flow pattern of the PKW, the discharge at the overflow edges, and the variation in the energy dissipation were revealed for different water heads. The results showed that the discharge of the side wall constitutes the majority of the total discharge at low water heads, resulting in a relatively high overall discharge efficiency. As the water head increases, the proportion of discharge from the inlet and outlet keys increases, while the proportion from the side wall decreases. This change results in less discharge from the side wall and a consequent reduction in the overall discharge efficiency. The PKW exhibits superior energy dissipation efficiency under low water heads. However, this efficiency exhibits an inverse relationship with an increasing water head. The overall energy dissipation efficiency can reach 40% to 70%. Additionally, the collision of the water flows inside the outlet chamber and the mixing of the overflow jet play a primary role in energy dissipation. The findings of this study have significant implications for hydraulic engineering construction and PKW operational safety.