Baosheng Wu

Sustainable sediment management in reservoirs and regulated rivers: Experiences from five continents

By trapping sediment in reservoirs, dams interrupt the continuity of sediment transport through rivers, resulting in loss of reservoir storage and reduced usable life, and depriving downstream reaches of sediments essential for channel form and aquatic habitats. With the acceleration of new dam construction globally, these impacts are increasingly widespread. There are proven techniques to pass sediment through or around reservoirs, to preserve reservoir capacity and to minimize downstream impacts, but they are not applied in many situations where they would be effective. This paper summarizes collective experience from five continents in managing reservoir sediments and mitigating downstream sediment starvation. Where geometry is favorable it is often possible to bypass sediment around the reservoir, which avoids reservoir sedimentation and supplies sediment to downstream reaches with rates and timing similar to pre-dam conditions. Sluicing (or drawdown routing) permits sediment to be transported through the reservoir rapidly to avoid sedimentation during high flows; it requires relatively large capacity outlets. Drawdown flushing involves scouring and re-suspending sediment deposited in the reservoir and transporting it downstream through low-level gates in the dam; it works best in narrow reservoirs with steep longitudinal gradients and with flow velocities maintained above the threshold to transport sediment. Turbidity currents can often be vented through the dam, with the advantage that the reservoir need not be drawn down to pass sediment. In planning dams, we recommend that these sediment management approaches be utilized where possible to sustain reservoir capacity and minimize environmental impacts of dams.

Transport of sediment in large sand-bed rivers

A sediment transport equation based on universal stream power is presented for the prediction of bed-material concentrations in large sand-bed rivers. The universal stream power, which is derived from the energy concept, has the advantage of eliminating the energy slope as a parameter. The energy slope, which is in the order of 10-5 for large rivers, is a major source of uncertainty in measurements. The analysis shows that relationships derived from flume experiments with shallow flows cannot be universally applied to large rivers with deep flows. Also the use of dimensionless homogeneous parameters in an equation is not sufficient to ensure its applicability to flow conditions where flow depths are several orders of magnitude larger. The comparisons between computed and measured sediment concentrations indicate that the commonly used Engelund and Hansen, Ackers and White, and Yang equations which were developed using mainly flume experiments are not applicable for large rivers with flow depths and Reynolds numbers up to 100 times larger than those found in flumes. The Toffaletis method which was developed mainly from field data gives reasonable predictions of sediment transport rates for large rivers. Using the proposed equation, the computed sediment transport rates are in much closer agreement with the actual measured values in large and medium rivers.

A general framework for using the rate law to simulate morphological response to disturbance in the fluvial system

A general framework for modelling morphological responses to perturbation is proposed, based on the underpinning principle that the rates of morphological response in alluvial channels are initially high and then decrease through time as the system relaxes following disturbance. The framework includes three morphological response models, each developed from the fundamental rate law, which has the form of an exponential decay function. These models consider the possibility that characteristic behaviours of the fluvial system, such as delayed response and/or cumulative effects, may affect morphological responses, making them capable of representing relaxation paths and times for a range of morphological response variables, whatever their initial states. To test their utility, the models in the framework were applied to simulate the sequence of geomorphological responses to disruption observed in selected rivers with well-documented histories of morphological perturbation, adjustment and recovery. The results demonstrate that the models in the general framework can successfully simulate temporal and spatial patterns of morphological response in the fluvial system under a range of different circumstances, while also indicating how their reliability could be further improved.

Exploring a semimechanistic episodic Langevin model for bed load transport: Emergence of normal and anomalous advection and diffusion regimes

Bed load transport is a highly stochastic, multiscale process, where particle advection and diffusion regimes are governed by the dynamics of each sediment grain during its motion and resting states. Having a quantitative understanding of the macroscale behavior emerging from the microscale interactions is important for proper model selection in the absence of individual grain-scale observations. Here we develop a semimechanistic sediment transport model based on individual particle dynamics, which incorporates the episodic movement (steps separated by rests) of sediment particles and study their macroscale behavior. By incorporating different types of probability distribution functions (PDFs) of particle resting times Tr, under the assumption of thin-tailed PDF of particle velocities, we study the emergent behavior of particle advection and diffusion regimes across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. For exponential PDFs of resting times Tr, we observe normal advection and diffusion at long time scales. For a power-law PDF of resting times (i.e., f(Tr)∼Tr−ν), the tail thickness parameter ν is observed to affect the advection regimes (both sub and normal advective), and the diffusion regimes (both subdiffusive and superdiffusive). By comparing our semimechanistic model with two random walk models in the literature, we further suggest that in order to reproduce accurately the emerging diffusive regimes, the resting time model has to be coupled with a particle motion model able to produce finite particle velocities during steps, as the episodic model discussed here.

Drift Velocity of Suspended Sediment in Turbulent Open Channel Flows

The drift velocity, at which sediment disperses relative to the motion of water-sediment mixtures, is a key variable in two-phase mixture equations. A constitutive relation for the drift velocity, expressed as a power series in the particle bulk Stokes number, was obtained by solving the momentum equation for sediment with the perturbation approach. It shows that gravity and turbulent diffusion are the primary dispersion effects on sediment, whereas flow inertia, particle-particle interactions, and other forces such as lift are the first-order particle inertial corrections that also play significant roles in sediment suspension. Analysis proves that studies based on turbulent diffusion theory are the zeroth-order approximations to the present formulation with respect to the particle inertia effect. The vertical concentration and velocity distributions of sediment in simple flows were investigated with the two-phase mixture equations closed by the drift velocity acquired in the research reported in this paper. The calculated concentration profiles agree well with measurements when the first-order particle inertial effect is considered. The calculated velocity of sediment coincides with available experiments that sediment lags behind water in open-channel flows as a result of turbulence-induced drag. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0000798.

Fault-tolerant technique in the cluster computation of the digital watershed model

Abstract This paper describes a parallel computing platform using the existing facilities for the digital watershed model. In this paper, distributed multi-layered structure is applied to the computer cluster system, and the MPI-2 is adopted as a mature parallel programming standard. An agent is introduced which makes it possible to be multi-level fault-tolerant in software development. The communication protocol based on checkpointing and rollback recovery mechanism can realize the transaction reprocessing. Compared with conventional platform, the new system is able to make better use of the computing resource. Experimental results show the speedup ratio of the platform is almost 4 times as that of the conventional one, which dem-onstrates the high efficiency and good performance of the new approach.

Effect of changes in flow runoff on the elevation of Tongguan in Sanmenxia Reservoir

This paper presents a study of the variation of the elevation of Tongguan, which is located in the backwater zone of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, in response to changes in flow runoff. The analysis indicated that the rise of the elevation of Tongguan, which is defined as the stage corresponding to a discharge of 1000 m3/s at Tongguan station, is controlled by the stream energy. A close relationship existed between the elevation of Tongguan and the superimposed stream energy that integrates the current and the preceding years’ flow and dam operation conditions. When the flow runoff remains relatively constant and the pool level of the dam has a relatively large range of variations, then the elevation of Tongguan is primarily controlled by the dam operation conditions. On the other hand, if the flow runoff has a relatively large range of variations and the pool level of the dam remains relatively constant, then the elevation of Tongguan is primarily controlled by the flow conditions. These findings are of importance for optimizing the dam operation in order to lower and control the elevation of Tongguan, and therefore to minimize the backwater effect of the dam operation.

Case Study of Variation of Sedimentation in the Yellow and Wei Rivers

AbstractThe Sanmenxia Dam built in 1960 in the middle reach of the Yellow River has experienced severe sedimentation problems, not only in the reservoir area itself but also extending hundreds of kilometers in the backwater region. Morphological responses in the middle Yellow River and its tributary, the Wei River, upstream of the dam have generally lagged behind the causal changes in upstream and downstream controls. Based on the geometrical characteristics of a wedge-shaped sedimentation body, a method was derived for calculating equilibrium values of the accumulated sedimentation volume Ve in the channel reaches. Combining the method for calculating Ve with rate law models for channel morphological adjustment, a method for calculating the accumulated deposition volumes was derived. The results showed that the proposed method can accurately simulate sedimentation processes in the study reaches during 1960 and 2011, in the response to the integrated impacts of base level fluctuations and changes in incom...

Simulation of transport channel in China's middle route south-to-north water transfer project

The unsteady flow in the Middle Route South-to-North Water Transfer Channel was simulated numerically using an implicit solution procedure for the Saint Venant equations. An equivalent roughness was used to simulate the effect of many transfer structures on the water levels in the main channel. Various gate operating and control methods were analyzed to study the response to disturbances produced by varying the flow rates through the Tianjin outlet. The results show that when the inflow at the head changes in the same way as the sum of the flow rates through all the outlets, the transition time and the fluctuation of the water levels using the timed gate operation method are less than when using the simultaneous gate operation method, but the variations of the gate openings and flow rates through each control gate are much larger. The flow disturbances produced by the Tianjin outlet can be rectified within several channel sections and the transition time can be greatly shortened by allowing the water levels immediately upstream of the control gates to vary within proscribed ranges, rather than being held constant.

Energy losses and threshold conditions for choking in channel contractions

This paper presents a study on the energy losses and threshold conditions for choking in short, lateral contractions in subcritical open channel flows. A theoretical equation to predict the limiting opening ratio for choking is derived from the conservation of energy and continuity principles. This equation accounts for the critical flow conditions in the contraction and the local energy losses. For the computations of energy losses, an expression for the energy loss coefficient is developed based on a total of 186 sets of choking experiments conducted in the past by various researchers. It is shown that the proposed equation for energy loss coefficient represents the experimental data from various sources within 5% discrepancy. The analysis shows that for flows under choking conditions the energy losses between the upstream section and the critical section in the contraction are mainly governed by the opening ratio, σ, and are also affected by the encroachment structure shape, the inlet angle, α, and the relative contraction length, L*. The energy loss coefficient can vary from 1.56 to 0.27 for σ changing from 0.12 to 0.87. It can also be reduced up to 60% for encroachment structure shape changing from sharp-corner to rounded-corner conditions; and up to 75% for a going from 90° to 30° and L* from 1.33 to 0.