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- Reservoir Sediment Prediction over the Western U.S.
Reservoir Sediment Prediction over the Western U.S.
Project ID: 1752
Principal Investigator: Blair Greimann
Research Topic: Sediment Management and River Restoration
Funded Fiscal Years:
2015 and
2017
Keywords: None
Research Question
Reservoir sedimentation affects all Reclamation reservoirs to some extent. Because of limited resources and time, only about one-third of Reclamation reservoirs have been re-surveyed since their construction and the scale of the reservoir sedimentation impact is unknown. The main question that this research will answer is:
What is the reservoir sedimentation volume present at every significant Reclamation Reservoir?
Can we estimate the useful life of every major Reclamation reservoir in terms of reservoir storage and other project benefits?
Need and Benefit
Need: Sedimentation is problematic for Reclamations reservoirs sediment design life, as well as for regional water treatment and associated disinfection byproducts. Existing sediment models have largely been limited to disparate applications at the hill-slope scale (IPCC AR5 Working Group II Chapters 3) with few exceptions. Despite advances in hydrologic modeling techniques and climate research, comparatively little has been done to integrate these advancements into sediment modeling and provide commensurate improvements in prediction to the reservoir and water-treatment communities.
Benefits: The benefits from this work include:
-estimates of sedimentation for reservoirs without recent surveys;
-projections of future loadings and sediment-design life;
-improved understanding of sedimentation drivers, assessment of which physics (models) are important for making skillful sediment predictions.
-a unique estimate of uncertainty associated with sediment prediction--enabling an exploration of inter-model agreement and model spread.
Contributing Partners
Contact the Principal Investigator for information about partners.
Research Products
Bureau of Reclamation Review
The following documents were reviewed by experts in fields relating to this project's study and findings. The results were determined to be achieved using valid means.
Controlling Nuisance Aquatic Plants in Canals (final, PDF, 1.2MB)
By Dale Lindeman
Publication completed on September 30, 2015
Reservoir Sediment Prediction over the Western U.S. (final, PDF, 953KB)
By Ben Livneh, Blair Greimann
Research Product completed on September 30, 2017
Reservoir Sediment Prediction over the Western U.S. (final, PDF, 953KB)
By Ben Livneh, Blair Greimann
Research Product completed on September 30, 2017
