Assessing Effects of Small Dams on Stream Flow and Water Quality in an Agricultural Watershed
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 10
Abstract
Small dams and associated reservoirs have notable effects on soil and water dynamics in prairie streams. In this study, we developed a simulation module of small dams in the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) to evaluate their long-term effects on stream flow and water quality at a watershed scale. To overcome the challenges in characterizing small storage and short retention time in small reservoir routing, concepts of equivalent reservoir storage and equivalent reservoir discharge are applied by which the average daily storage and daily discharge of the small reservoirs are calculated. Accordingly, the sediment deposition and nutrient abatement within the reservoir are computed using available SWAT routines. The effects of small dams in reduction of daily peak flow, sediment, and nutrient loads at the watershed outlet are obtained by summing the effects of all small dams within the watershed considering both reservoir and channel processes. The model is applied to the South Tobacco Creek watershed located in Southern Manitoba of Canada. A total of 26 small dams exist in the watershed with surface area ranging from 0.002 to and storage capacity from 3,380 to . The simulation results show that the combined effect of these small dams can reduce daily peak flow by 0–14% at the watershed outlet depending on climate and initial reservoir storage conditions. The estimated average annual sediment, total nitrogen and total phosphorus reductions at the watershed outlet are about 4.51, 3.59, and 2.96%, respectively. However, the on-site effects of individual small dams are much higher depending on its size, location, shape, drainage area, and land use compositions in the contribution area. The simulation results also show that snowmelt-flooding events have higher reduction amounts but lower relative reduction rates compared to rainfall storm events and the back-flood small dams have greater impact on sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorous abatement followed by multipurpose small dams and dry dams in the study watershed.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is supported by the Canadian AAFC WEBs project and SSHRC. The authors would like to thank David Kiely, Brook Harker, Terrie Hoppe, Valerie Stuart, Lucy Clearwater, and Irene Hanuta of AAFC for administrative support; and Dr. Mohammad Khakbazan and Cliff Hamilton of AAFC for providing land management data. The authors would like to thank Drs. David Lobb and Don Flaten of University of Manitoba for their insights on our modeling efforts. The authors would also like to thank Bill Turner, Don Cruikshank, and Kelvin Hildebrandt of Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association for their excellent support on field work and data collection.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19 • Issue 10 • October 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 19, 2013
Accepted: Apr 1, 2014
Published online: Apr 3, 2014
Published in print: Oct 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Nov 30, 2014
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