Predicting the Morphodynamic Response of Silt-Laden Rivers to Water and Sediment Release from Reservoirs: Lower Yellow River, China
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 137, Issue 1
Abstract
The high sediment load of the Yellow River results in rapid infilling of its reservoirs when sediment is not regularly flushed. Simultaneously, the downstream reaches of the Yellow River experience extremely high siltation rates, which are reduced when sediment is retained in its reservoirs. To minimize siltation in the reservoirs and the downstream river bed, water and sediment are released from the reservoir in a controlled way through flushing experiments. In this paper, we analyze the effect of such a flushing event on the downstream river bed through data analysis and numerical modeling. Sedimentation may be minimized by relating the amount of sediment released from the reservoir to the sediment available for release through operational monitoring and by releasing relatively clear water after turbid water. Despite this flushing of sediment, the reservoir will eventually fill up, and more sediment released again into the lower Yellow River. The change in discharge magnitude and frequency brought about by the reservoir will then probably result in increased siltation rates in the lower Yellow River compared to the predam situation.
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Acknowledgments
This work is part of the project “Predictive Morphological Modeling of the Lower Yellow River,” financed by the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) within the framework of the Program of Scientific Alliances between China and The Netherlands, and supported by the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. NNSFC50439020). We thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions that greatly improved this paper.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 137 • Issue 1 • January 2011
Pages: 90 - 99
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 30, 2009
Accepted: May 19, 2010
Published online: May 21, 2010
Published in print: Jan 2011
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