Professional Documents
Culture Documents
www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph
Abstract
The efficacy of extreme events is directly linked to the flood power and the total energy expended. The geomorphic effectiveness of
floods is evaluated in terms of the distribution of stream power per unit boundary area () over time, for three very large floods of the 20th
Century in the Indian Peninsula. These floods stand out as outliers when compared with the peak floods per unit drainage area recorded
elsewhere in the world. We used flood hydrographs and at-a-station hydraulic geometry equations, computed for the same gauging site or a
nearby site, to construct approximately stream-power curves and to estimate the total energy expended by each flood. Critical unit stream
power values necessary to entrain cobbles and boulders were estimated on the basis of empirical relationships for coarse sediment transport
developed by Williams [Williams, G.P., 1983. Paleohydrological methods and some examples from Swedish fluvial environments. I.
Cobble and boulder deposits. Geografiska Annaler 65A, 227243.] in order to determine the geomorphological effectiveness of the
floods. The estimates indicate that the minimum power per unit area values for all three floods were sufficiently high, and stream energy
was above the threshold of boulder movement (90 W m 2) for several tens of hours. The peak unit stream power values and the total
energy expended during each flood were in the range of 290325 W m 2 and 65160 106 J respectively. The average and peak flood
powers were found to be higher or comparable to those estimated for extreme palaeo or modern floods on low-gradient, alluvial rivers.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Floods; Geomorphic effectiveness; Stream-power graphs; Energy expenditure; Indian Peninsula
1. Introduction
All large rivers of the Indian Peninsula are subjected to
high-magnitude floods at intervals of several years to
decades (Gupta, 1995; Kale, 2003). Such floods produce
substantial hydrodynamic forces, and are likely to be
geomorphologically effective if of long duration and if
power expenditure is high (Costa and O'Connor, 1995).
However, due to lack of hydrologic, hydraulic and geomorphic data the geomorphic effectiveness of such highmagnitude floods is often difficult to compute in terms of
307
Fig. 1. Drainage map of India showing the location of the three rivers and the three gauging sites mentioned in the text for which the stream-power graphs
were constructed. 1. Garudeshwar on the Narmada, 2. Ghala on the Tapi; Ukai site is just upstream of the Ghala site, and 3. Koida on the Godavari.
Triangles represent neighbouring gauging stations for which long records of the annual peak discharge data are available and used in this paper.
Rivers are the two largest and highly floodprone westflowing rivers with catchment areas of 98796 km2 and
65145 km2 respectively (Kale et al., 1994). The average
channel gradients of the Narmada, Tapi and Godavari
Rivers are 0.0008, 0.001 and 0.0007 respectively. All the
three rivers flow through geomorphologically and tectonically active regions that are also affected by frequent
flood-producing storms. Large floods during the monsoon
season (JuneOctober) are common and the channels
show many features indicative of high-energy processes.
2.1. Channel morphology
The rivers under review flow through both bedrock
and alluvial reaches. CretaceousEocene Deccan Trap
basalts occur in the Tapi Basin and Proterozoic rocks of
the Vindhyan Supergroup or Trap basalts in that of the
Narmada (Kale et al., 1994; Rajaguru et al., 1995). The
geology of the Godavari Basin is diverse and includes
308
monsoon rainfall as common for Indian rivers and illustrate a regime with one pronounced maximum.
2.3. Annual maximum series
Long records of the annual peak discharge data are
available for all three rivers (Fig. 2). Discharges of all
the large floods since 1876 and stages of all the extreme
floods between 1727 and 1876 have been recorded for the
Surat gauging site (Fig. 1) located near the mouth of the
Tapi River. These data show that the 1837 flood was the
Fig. 2. (A) Record of the high flood stages on the Tapi River at Surat. The dotted line represents the Danger Level (29 m), which is approximately equal to
the bankfull stage and is the maximum safe level for the Surat city (Purohit, 1972). The flood stage has been plotted as continuous annual peak discharge
data are not available for the entire gauging period. (B) Time series plot of annual peak discharge on the Narmada River. The upper line represents the flood
stage recorded at Bharuch, and the lower one line (solid circles) the annual peak discharge (Q) recorded at Garudeshwar on the Narmada. (C) Time series
plot of annual peak discharge (Q) on the Godavari at Dowlaiswaram. The largest floods of the 20th Century at each site are shown by solid triangles. Data
source: Purohit (1972), Nageswara Rao (2001), Unesco (1976), Central Water Commission, New Delhi and other sources.
309
Fig. 3. Unit peak discharges (rainfall floods) plotted against drainage basin area for 22 large world rivers (solid circles) and the three rivers under review
(triangles). Unit discharge equal to 0.1 m3 s 1 km 2 is shown by a horizontal line. Rainfallflood data for the world rivers from O'Connor and Costa (2004).
specific stream power (Baker and Costa, 1987; Magilligan, 1992; Knighton, 1999; Kale and Hire, 2004;
Reinfelds et al., 2004). The specific or unit stream power
of a flow is a function of flood magnitude, channel
3. Methodology
3.1. Determination of unit stream power
The geomorphic effectiveness of a flood, which
relates to its ability to affect the form of the landscape
(Wolman and Gerson, 1978), is commonly linked to
Fig. 4. Flood hydrographs of the (A) 1968 flood at Ukai on the Tapi
(catchment area 62 224 km2), (B) 1970 flood at Garudeshwar on the
Narmada (catchment area 89 345 km2), and (C) 1986 flood at
Dowlaiswaram on the Godavari (catchment area 309 000 km2). Source:
A and B after Ramasawamy (1985), and C after Nageswara Rao (2001).
310
Table 1
Discharge and upstream catchment area of the river gauging sites used in the present study
Flood
event
River
Catchment
area ratio
5/7
1968
1970
1986
42 450
69 400
99 300
Tapi
Narmada
Godavari
Ukai
Garudeshwar
Dowlaiswaram
62 224
89 345
309 000
Ghala
Garudeshwar
Koida
63 325
89 345
305 460
0.98
1.00
1.01
x sv gQS=w
Table 2
Channel morphological characteristics of the river gauging sites used in the present study
River
Gauging site
Channel type
Gradient (10 4)
Bed material
Tapi
Narmada
Godavari
Ghala
Garudeshwar
Koida
Alluvial
Alluvial
Alluvial
535
649
676
18
27
31
29
24
22
3.7
3.0
2.9
Gravel
Gravel
Sandy gravel
Estimated for the largest flood on the basis of hydraulic geometry equations given in Table 3.
311
Fig. 5. Channel cross-sections. (A) At Ghala across the Tapi River, (B)
At Garudeshwar across the Narmada River, and (C) Between Koida
and Dowlaiswaram on the Godavari River. Cross-section at the Koida
gauging site is not available. The cross-section shown in the figure is
somewhat narrower than the Koida cross-section, but the overall
morphology is similar. HFL = high flood level. Source of A and B after
CWC, and C based on field survey.
Table 3
Hydraulic geometry equations for the river gauging sites used in the present study
River
Tapi
Narmada
Godavari
Q = discharge in m3 s 1.
Gauging site
Ghala
Garudeshwar
Koida
Width (w) in m
0.05
w = 313.8 Q
w = 190.4 Q0.11
w = 380.7 Q0.05
Depth (d) in m
0.48
d = 0.11 Q
d = 0.024 Q0.63
d = 0.09 Q0.51
Velocity (v) in m s 1
v = 0.03 Q0.47
v = 0.22 Q0.27
v = 0.03 Q0.43
312
gQ S=w dt
Channel Flood
types
event
Tapi
Narmada
Godavari
Mississippi
Plum Creek,
Coloradob
Bonneville
Floodb
Missoula
Floodb
Alluvial
Alluvial
Alluvial
Alluvial
Alluvial
Average
stream
power
(W m 2/
(J/s))
1968
1970
1986
1927
1965
Peak
unit
stream
power
(W m 2)
Energy
expended
per unit
area
(106 J)
150
130
190
6a
110
290
325
310
12a
630
65
115
160
22b
4
300
1700
60 000
3500
313
Fig. 7. Plot of peak specific stream power (W m 2) versus energy expended per unit area (106 J). Events with extreme geomorphic impacts are shown
with solid circles and the solid diamonds represent events with small geomorphic impacts (data after Costa and O'Connor, 1995). Triangles represent
floods discussed in this paper. The dotted line approximately demarcates the cluster of events with extreme geomorphic impacts. Line of critical unit
stream power (c) is after Magilligan (1992).
314
Table 5
Approximate duration of energy levels above the Williams' (1983)
threshold of cobble and boulder movement during the three
extraordinary floods
River
Flood Duration in
Duration in
event hours above the hours above
threshold of
the threshold
cobble
of boulder
(N64 mm)
(N256 mm)
movement
movement
Tapi
1968
Narmada 1970
Godavari 1986
120
240
240
70
110
215
Duration in
hours above the
threshold of
larger boulders
(N500 mm)
movement
40
50
80
Based on Fig. 6.
315
Baker, V.R., Kale, V.S., 1998. The role of extreme floods in shaping
bedrock channels. In: Tinkler, K.J., Wolh, E. (Eds.), Rivers Over
Rock: Fluvial Processes in Bedrock Channels. Monograph, vol.
107. American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C., pp. 153165.
Costa, J.E., 1983. Paleohydraulic reconstruction of flash-flood peaks
from boulder deposits in the Colorado Front range. Geological
Society of America Bulletin 94, 9861004.
Costa, J.E., O'Connor, J.E., 1995. Geomorphically effective floods. In:
Costa, J.E., Miller, A.J., Potter, K.W., Wilcock, P. (Eds.), Natural
and Anthropogenic Influences in Fluvial Geomorphology. Monograph, vol. 89. American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C.,
pp. 4556.
Deodhar, L.A., Kale, V.S., 1999. Downstream adjustments in
allochthonous rivers: western Deccan trap upland region, India.
In: Miller, A.J., Gupta, A. (Eds.), Varieties of Fluvial Form. Wiley,
Chichester, pp. 292315.
Dhar, O.N., Nandargi, S., 1995. On some characteristics of severe rainstorms of India. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 50, 205212.
Gupta, A., 1995. Magnitude, frequency, and special factors affecting
channel form and processes in the seasonal tropics. In: Costa, J.E.,
Miller, A.J., Potter, K.W., Wilcock, P. (Eds.), Natural and
Anthropogenic Influences in Fluvial Geomorphology. Monograph, vol. 89. American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C.,
pp. 125136.
Kale, V.S., 2003. Geomorphic effects of monsoon floods on Indian
rivers. Natural Hazards 28, 6584.
Kale, V.S., Hire, P.S., 2004. Effectiveness of monsoon floods on the
Tapi River, India: role of channel geometry and hydrologic regime.
Geomorphology 57, 275291.
Kale, V.S., Ely, L.L., Enzel, Y., Baker, V.R., 1994. Geomorphic and
hydrologic aspects of monsoon floods on the Narmada and Tapi
Rivers in central India. Geomorphology 10, 157168.
Knighton, A.D., 1999. Downstream variation in stream power.
Geomorphology 29, 293306.
Magilligan, F.J., 1992. Thresholds and the spatial variability of flood
power during extreme floods. Geomorphology 5, 373390.
Miller, A.J., 1990. Flood hydrology and geomorphic effectiveness in
the central Appalachians. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
15, 119134.
Nageswara Rao, G., 2001. Occurrence of heavy rainfall around the
confluence line in monsoon disturbances and its importance in
causing floods. Proceedings of Indian Academy of Sciences (Earth
and Planetary Science) 110, 8794.
O'Connor, J.E., 1993. Hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology of
the Bonneville flood. Geological Society of America Special
Paper, vol. 274, p. 82.
O'Connor, J.E., Costa, J.E., 2004. The world's largest floods, past and
present: their causes and magnitude. U.S. Geological Survey
Circular 1254.
Purohit, M.U., 1972. Role of Ukai project in controlling floods in
the lower Tapi region. Ukai Dam Project Souvenir, Surat, India,
pp. 2535.
Rajaguru, S.N., Gupta, A., Kale, V.S., Mishra, S., Ganjoo, R.K., Ely,
L.L., Enzel, Y., Baker, V.R., 1995. Channel form and process of
flood-dominated Narmada River, India. Earth Surface Processes
and Landforms 20, 407421.
Ramasawamy, C., 1985. Review of Floods in India During the Past
75 Years. Indian National Science Academy Publication, New
Delhi, p. 78.
Reinfelds, I., Cohen, T., Batten, P., Brierley, G., 2004. Assessment of
downstream trends in channel gradient, total and specific stream
power: a GIS approach. Geomorphology 60, 403416.
316
Thatte, C.D., Rao, B.K., More, D.K., 1986. An approach to assess rate
of bed load in large cobbly rivers. A case study of Narmada River.
Proceedings of 53rd Research and Development Session, Central
Board of Irrigation and Power, New Delhi, India, pp. 237252.
Unesco, 1976. World Catalogue of Very Large Floods. The Unesco
Press, Paris, pp. 119123.