Effectiveness of Submerged Vanes for Stabilizing Streamside Bluffs
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 2
Abstract
The effectiveness of submerged vanes for stabilizing streamside bluffs varied over a 10-year monitoring period in a tributary to Lake Superior, United States. Submerged vanes are a river training device used to divert river flows away from eroding banks along meander bends and ultimately hold constant or reverse the direction of lateral migration. At the study site, the relatively steep slope, large substrate size, and flashy flow regime pushed the upper end of the design limitations of submerged vanes. Changes in channel location and morphology due to the vanes were monitored using repeat channel cross-section surveys along a 110-m reach. The vanes experienced 15 floods over the monitoring period. The two most damaging floods happened in the summer and fall of 2005 with annual exceedance probabilities of 7% and 6% respectively. A new data analysis method for rivers, using centroids of cross sections, was useful to track channel migration rapidly and objectively and, along with calculations of changes in bankfull channel size, provide metrics to describe channel change.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
Vane installation and channel monitoring involved numerous able and willing students from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), personnel at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and USGS, and volunteers from county, State, and Federal agencies in Wisconsin. David Poggi and Heather Whitman [(Schwar), formerly UW-Madison, Wisconsin] led initial vane installation, setup, and surveying of cross sections. Bernard Lenz (formerly USGS), David Housner (USGS, Middleton, Wisconsin.), Krista Hood [Stensvold] (USGS, Middleton, Wisconsin), Ryan Jirik (USGS, Rhinelander, Wisconsin), and James Kennedy (USGS, Middleton, Wisconsin) assisted with vane installation and (or) cross section surveys. Andrew Veine, Kent Brander, Matt Hoffmann, Joshua Katt, Michael Schwar, Jay Stahl, Todd Shoemaker, Matthew Van Lieshout, and Yang Yang (all former UW-Madison students) also assisted with vane installation and cross section surveys. Thomas Popowski (retired USGS) and Eric Dantoin (USGS, Rhinelander, Wisconsin) operated and maintained the stream gauge. Marie Peppler (USGS, Reston, Virginia) and Eric Dantoin continued the monitoring after the UW-Madison students had graduated. Dennis Pratt (retired WDNR, Superior, Wisconsin) provided assistance with site selection and history of failed bluff stabilizations. Professor Kenneth Potter (emeritus, UW-Madison) gave needed technical advice. The authors are very appreciative of access to the site granted by Mr. Robert Dufek. Funding for the study was provided by a partnership of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Erosion and Control Program, and the USGS. Lastly, coauthors Lee and Fitzpatrick pay tribute to the tireless and never-ending optimism supplied by coauthor Professor John Hoopes in testing submerged vanes in the worst conditions possible for them, realizing the chance of failure could be very high. Professor Hoopes wrote a portion of this manuscript before he unexpectedly passed away in 2013. This manuscript benefited from reviews by Benjamin Swanson, Jeffrey Ziegeweid, Cynthia Rachol, John Walker, Janet Carter, and three anonymous reviewers. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.
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Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 2 • February 2021
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 27, 2019
Accepted: Jul 24, 2020
Published online: Nov 19, 2020
Published in print: Feb 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Apr 19, 2021
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