Reservoir Sedimentation and Water Supply Reliability By: Aubrey Mescher, MESM Ms
Reservoir Sedimentation and Water Supply Reliability By: Aubrey Mescher, MESM Ms. Mescher is a water resources specialist at Aspen’s Agoura Hills headquarters office. Our reservoirs are filling with sediment. That’s the same as dirt. Mud, muck, silt. Rocks, gravel, even boulders. All of this stuff where there’s supposed to be just water. Water for drinking, irrigation, recreation, commercial and industrial uses, flood control, and groundwater recharge. This isn’t a new issue. Actually, reservoirs are assumed to have a finite lifetime, limited by loss of function due to sedimentation. But reservoirs are filling with sediment far more quickly than anticipated, and important water supply and flood control facilities are not only being rendered useless before their time, but in doing so they are simultaneously introducing new issues with public safety and water supply reliability. What is sedimentation? Sedimentation is a natural process that occurs when soil particles suspended in water settle out of the main water column to the bottom. Sediment content in a waterway is higher during and after storm events, when rates of flow and erosion are higher, and lower during dry months, when these rates tend to be lower. Under natural conditions, unconstrained by a dam, the quantity of water and sediment in a waterway is generally balanced, as the ground surface and riverbed erode into the waterway, and sediment is deposited in downstream areas, where it provides habitat and replenishes riverbanks and beaches. But when a dam is constructed in a waterway, it traps the flow of both water and sediment. The sediment gradually accumulates behind the dam, larger particles such as rocks and gravel settling to the reservoir floor while the spaces in between fill with finer material such as silt and mud.
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