INCOH/SAR-6/95-Reservoir sedimentation

Abstract

It has been estimated that the total world population will increase from 4.5 billion in 1980 to about 6.5 billion by the year 2000, with the most rapid growth in the developing countries. By that time, the countries within the humid tropics and the other warm humid regions will represent almost one-third of the total world population. This proportion will continue to rise in the twenty-first century. The developing and under-developed countries thus quite clearly are the regions facing potentially serious water problems. Hence, it is urgent to question as to whether the fields of hydrology and water resources management have the appropriate methods in place to meet the rising demands that will be made on the water resources. Hence it becomes very important and expeditious to review and update the state-of-art in different facets of hydrology and component processes. This calls for compiling and reporting present day technology in assessment of water resources and determining the quality of these water resources.

Reservoir sedimentation is very important process. It is very essential to be able to predict the manner in which reservoir will get silted and will change the hydrologic conditions in the area. The present methods are not completely adequate to make such predictions. Because of the complexity of the problem, any method or methods developed for such prediction will strongly depend on input data. The status report reviews the material available on various aspects of reservoir sedimentation such as sediment yield, sediment deposition profiles and their prediction, and methods of controlling silting. Emphasis is given on starting a well planned programme for collecting data on sediment yield, depletion of reservoir capacity, deposition profiles and effects of construction of dam on hydraulic and hydrologic conditions in the down-stream channel. The report was prepared in 1988 and covers the state-of-art upto 1988.