Evaluation of reservoir sedimentation as a methodology for sediment yield assessment in the Mediterranean: challenges and limitations

Joris de Vente, Jean Poesen & Gert Verstraeten Laboratory for Experimental Geomorphology, K.U. Leuven, Belgium Joris.deVente@geo.kuleuven.ac.be 1. Introduction Reservoir sedimentation is a serious off-site consequence of soil erosion with large environmental and economical implications. On the other hand however, reservoir sedimentation also provides valuable information on erosion problems and sediment transport within a drainage basin. A reservoir can be considered as a large scale experiment, as the outlet of a giant erosion plot. The objective of this paper is to first discuss briefly the methodology of bathymetric surveys that are generally used to assess reservoir sedimentation and advantages over other means to assess basin sediment export. Secondly, the data obtained from reservoir surveys are discussed in relation to data obtained at other scales, leading to a conceptual model of the relation between spatial scale and active sources and sinks of sediment and sediment export at the basin scale. Yet, the next paragraph will first illustrate why it is relevant to know more about reservoir sedimentation and sediment export at the basin scale. 2. Problems related to reservoir sedimentation Reservoirs around the world are losing on average about one percent of their storage capacity annually (WCD, 2000), causing serious problems for water and electricity supply, flood control but also for ecosystem development up-and downstream of large dams. Consequences are especially precarious in (semi-) arid environments where many reservoirs have been built for irrigation, water supply, flood control and production of electricity. However, also in other areas sediment storage behind dams can have large implications for ecosystem and coastal development downstream of large river systems, as less sediments are delivered which will influence river and coastal geomorphic processes (Syvitski, 2003; Vorosmarty et al., 2003; WCD, 2000; Woodward, 1995). Furthermore, storage of possibly contaminated sediments in a reservoir and subsequent chemical reactions occurring within the sediments due to long term storage, cause serious problems for water quality and possibilities to further use the sediments after dredging or flushing operations. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to be aware of sediment yield at the basin scale, of the composition of the sediments, and understand which factors determine the sedimentation rate of reservoirs. This knowledge will allow to estimate the probable lifespan of a reservoir and moreover to take proper measures against reservoir sedimentation, water shortage and river bank and coastal erosion. At the moment the prediction of sediment yield at the basin scale (> ~30 km) is still one of the largest challenges in soil erosion research. Measurements of the export of sediments 139

from a basin are relevant since at the moment very few models are available that focus on assessments at spatial scales larger than ~30 km. Those models that do focus at these scales always require measurements of sediment yield for calibration and validation purposes. 3. Measurement of reservoir sedimentation 3.1 Bathymetric surveys The methodology to assess the volume of sediments stored in a reservoir is currently quite well developed and described. The main steps to be taken in a bathymetric survey, as the methodology is called, are summarised below and are based on the methodology used by the Spanish Centro de Estudios Hidrograficos (CEH-CEDEX) of the Ministry of Environment (Avendao Salas and Calvo Sorando, 1994; Avendao Salas and Cobo Rayn, 1997; Avendao Salas et al., 1995; CEDEX, 1992), and is based on guidelines described by the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD, 1989). The first step in a bathymetric survey consists of the determination of the volume of sediments in the reservoir. This is done by comparison of the initial reservoir volume at the moment of dam construction (obtained from the construction plans) with the present volume (at the moment of the capacity assessment). The present reservoir volume is determined by a combination of photogrammetric and echo-sounding methods. Photogrammetry is used to determine the topography of the part of the reservoir not filled with water, and echo-sounding to determine the below-water topography. Now, the present reservoir volume is calculated as the volume between the contour lines of the topographical map, constructed from the photogrammetric and bathymetric analysis. The volume of deposited sediments is defined by subtraction of the initial from the present reservoir volume. When beside sediment volume, also sediment mass is required, the bulk density of the deposited sediments should be determined. Since, it is very complicated to take undisturbed samples of submerged sediment, and the sediment bulk density changes over time due to consolidation of the sediments over the years, usually an empirical method is applied to determine its mean bulk density. Three factors basically determine the bulk density of sediments, namely texture, reservoir operation and age of the sediments. Therefore, sediment samples should be taken from the bottom of the reservoir. It is important to take sufficient samples, to represent all parts of the reservoir. All the sediment samples should be analysed for percentage sand, silt and clay. The reservoir operation refers to the percentage of the total reservoir volume that is normally filled with water. This is important, since sediments that are often exposed to air will consolidate more than sediments that are always submerged. Therefore, four types of reservoirs are generally distinguished: 1) reservoirs that are normally full 2) reservoirs with moderate draw down 3) reservoirs with considerable draw down 4) reservoirs that are normally empty. Now, the density of the sediments is determined by combining the empirical equation of Miller (Miller, 1953) (Eq. 1 and 2) and the equation of Lara and Pemberton (Eq. 3) (Lara and Pemberton, 1965), which is an adaptation of the relation originally developed by Lane and Koelzer (Lane and Koelzer, 1943). 140

 t Wt = W0 + 0.4343 * K * * (ln t ) 1 t 1 K = K c pc + K m pm + K s ps W 0 = W c pc + W m pm + W s ps

(1) (2) (3)

Here, Wt refers to the average bulk density of sediments after t years of operation, W0 stands for the mean bulk density after 1 year, pc, pm, ps, the percentages of clay, silt and sand respectively and Wc, Wm, Ws are the coefficients of initial unit weight for clay, silt and sand. K is the consolidation coefficient. Both the coefficients of unit weight and the consolidation coefficient per fraction are empirical and were reported by Lara and Pemberton (1965). The total mass of sediments present in the reservoir is now calculated by multiplication of the average density (Wt) and the volume of sediments present. Now, in order to asses the basin sediment yield, the calculated sediment volume or mass has to be corrected for the trap efficiency of the reservoir. The trap efficiency refers to the percentage of incoming sediments that is retained in the reservoir, and depends principally on the sediment characteristics, the stream flow velocity and the reservoir operation (Vanoni, 1977). Different empirical relations have been developed to estimate the trap efficiency. Usually the relation proposed by Brown (Eq.4) (Brown, 1943) is applied, as this relation is suited for large reservoirs, and is relatively easy to apply, but also other relations are available, that require some more input data (Verstraeten & Poesen, 2000).

1 TE = 100 * 1 (1 + D * C ) A

(4)

In this relation, TE, stands for trap efficiency (%), C for the capacity of the reservoir (m) and A for the drainage area of the basin (km). D is a constant between 0.09 and 2.1 and depends on the reservoir type. For large reservoirs, the trap efficiency will always be close to 100 percent. Finally, after correction for the trap efficiency, the average area-specific reservoir sedimentation rate (t/km/yr) can be calculated by dividing the total mass of deposited sediments during the years of operation of the reservoir and the surface area of the drainage basin. 3.2 Accuracy of bathymetric survey and advantage over alternatives In general, reservoir surveys are seen as more accurate than alternative methods for assessments of sediment export at the basin scale, since they provide direct measurements instead of indirect estimates (Strand and Pemberton, 1987). Another advantage of reservoir surveys is that they often provide information over long time spans and represent both the effect of frequent and rare events. An alternative method can be for example the development of a so called suspended sediment rating curve. This curve is a correlation between discharge and suspended sediment load measurements, and in general is rather accurate, but has two strong drawbacks. First, bedload is not incorporated in the measurement, and second, since measurements are usually collected only for a limited period (i.e. few years), these 141

relations often are not capable to represent the effect of extreme events, which can have a significant effect on long-term sediment export. Although bathymetric reservoir surveys are generally seen as more reliable than other methods still some uncertainties are related to this method as well. For example, errors can be made in the reservoir survey, in volume calculations, in the conversion from sediment volume to mass and in the trap efficiency calculations. The latter two are expected to be the most uncertain. As Verstraeten and Poesen (2001) demonstrated, the empirical relations to determine bulk density based on fractions sand silt and clay do not provide accurate estimates of sediment mass in small ponds in Belgium, suggesting that it might be more reliable to use sediment volume than sediment mass in sediment yield assessments. Nevertheless, the study by Salas and Shin (Salas and Shin, 1999) suggested that the uncertainty related to estimation of the sediment type and the trap efficiency are small compared to the estimation of annual stream flow and sediment inflow, required for application of sediment rating curves. Furthermore, though uncertainty in trap efficiency can be relatively high for small reservoirs and ponds, for larger reservoirs, the error normally is much lower (Verstraeten and Poesen, 2000; Verstraeten and Poesen, 2002). Altogether, bathymetric surveys seem the most suited available method to make assessments of long term average sediment export at the basin scale. 4. Know what you measure: some scale issues. Reservoir sedimentation data provide a long-term average sedimentation rate. As was discussed in the previous paragraph, the advantage of reservoir sedimentation data is that in principle they can represent both the common and the rare events. However, this also implies that interpretation and comparison with other measurements of soil loss should be done carefully. Furthermore, it is important to realise that reservoir sedimentation rates only give information on the sediment export, and so on off-site effects of soil erosion. Reservoir sedimentation alone does not provide information on spatial distribution of source areas of sediments nor of sediment deposition within the catchment. When comparing reservoir data with soil loss and sediment yield data at other scales often large differences are apparent. The reason for this is that soil loss measurements at one spatial scale are not representative for measurements at another scale level. There are significant differences in sediment yield from reservoirs and those measured in plot studies. Reservoir sedimentation represents all active erosion and sediment transport processes in a basin. The fact that erosion measurements at one scale are not representative for sediment yield at another scale level is nicely illustrated by a comparison of sediment production rates at different scales (de Vente and Poesen, submitted). From small plots to larger areas, area-specific sediment yield generally increases due to the fact that more erosion and transporting processes become active. However, from a certain area-threshold, erosion becomes dominated by deposition, and the role of sediment sinks is more important. This results in a negative relation between basin area and sediment yield. However, there are of course exceptions to this general trend, and local conditions determine the output at different scales. For example, in plot studies under extreme conditions, very high sediment export can be found. Equally, the relation between basin area and sediment yield is far from uniform. For example, a negative trend is 142

not always found and different groups can be identified with higher and lower sediment yield. The explanation for this can be that though drainage area has a strong influence on sediment transport, local conditions such as vegetation cover, lithology and topography also have a strong influence on actual sediment export (de Vente and Poesen, submitted). This was also suggested by various studies where positive relations were explained by either the presence of densely vegetated slopes, resulting in limited upland erosion and dominant bank erosion (Dedkov and Moszherin, 1992), or by remobilization of Quaternary sediments (Church and Slaymaker, 1989). Reservoirs might be in operation already a long time when bathymetric survey are applied. This means that in some areas, important land use changes might have taken place, and erosion and sedimentation rates might have varied strongly over time. Thus, it may perfectly be that most sediments were delivered in a short period or during some extreme events. In this respect it is interesting to refer to various sediment budget studies. Various examples are known where basin sediment export was significantly influenced due to land use changes within the basin (Einsele and Hinderer, 1997). However, several other studies (Prosser et al., 2001; Trimble, 1999; Walling, 1999) showed that though changed environmental conditions (i.e. land use, climate) resulted in changed erosion rates and sediment production in upslope areas, no significant changes were found in total sediment export at the basin outlet. This suggests that basin sediment yield not necessarily responds directly to changes within a basin, or not to the same extent. In other words, in some cases, environmental change is primarily reflected in reorganisation within the basin rather than in a direct change in sediment yield at the basin outlet (Phillips, 2003). 5. Further challenges and applications As the previous paragraph makes clear, reservoir sedimentation data provide valuable information on sediment yield and on sediment transport within a basin. However, some issues deserve special attention. For basin management, beside insight in the output of sediments, also information is required on the actual source areas of the sediments, of the areas of most severe land degradation and areas where sediment deposition takes place. Therefore, spatially distributed models and measurements are preferred as they indicate where erosion and deposition occurs within the catchment. However, the problem of spatially distributed models is that model validation is troublesome since validation should be done not only at the basin outlet but on the total spatial pattern of erosion and deposition (Jetten et al., 2003; Takken et al., 1999). Possibilities for spatially distributed validation are by intensive studies of overall sediment budgets, using tracers to establish source areas and sediment dating to verify sediment storage (Walling, 1999; Wasson et al., 2002). Another way might be by the measurement of sedimentation behind small dams in sub-basins. Though, as the accuracy of these measurements is limited because of the low and uncertain trap efficiency, these data merely serve as relative indications rather than absolute measurements. Furthermore, detailed analysis of the stratigraphy of sediments in a reservoir can be of value to link large sedimentation periods to climate events or to periods of intensive land use.

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6. Conclusions: Monitoring soil loss and sediment transport at the basin scale Altogether, it can be concluded that reservoir sedimentation data are a valuable tool for monitoring sediment dynamics at the basin scale and assess problems related the loss of storage capacity and of sediment export to rivers downstream as well as to coastal areas. Furthermore, reservoir sedimentation data also can provide insight in sediment dynamics within the basin, though no information is obtained on the spatial distribution of sediment sources. For insight in the spatial pattern of erosion and sedimentation probably tracer studies in combination with modelling are the most appropriate. Nevertheless, for modelling at the basin scale very few models exist that are capable to incorporate both erosion and sediment delivery accurately, and these models will require data on sediment yield at various scales for calibration and validation. The methodology of bathymetric surveys is well developed and is generally seen as the best available method to assess basin sediment export, though with the limitation that it can of course only be applied when a reservoir is present. Further, in assessment of reservoir sedimentation it is important that the reservoir is in operation long enough to include also the rare event and the trap efficiency should be included in calculations. In order to assess the bulk density sufficient sediment samples should be taken. Basin sediment yield reflects all erosion and deposition processes within a basin and thus reservoir sedimentation rates can not be compared directly with for example soil loss measurements from runoff plots as different erosion and deposition processes are measured. Important for interpretation is further that reservoir sedimentation rates represent the long-term average sediment export of a basin and therefore do not necessarily reflect all environmental changes occurring within a drainage basin. References
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