SEDIMENT

MANAGEMENT
MEASURES

 Reduce Sediment
Inflow
Route Sediments
Sediment Removal

REDUCE SEDIMENT INFLOW

Sediment delivery to the reservoir
can be reduced by techniques such
as:
Watershed Management
Upstream Sediment Trapping
Use of Debris Dams

ROUTE SEDIMENTS
Some or all of the inflowing sediment
load may be hydraulically routed
beyond storage pool by techniques
such as:
Sediment Sluicing
Sediment Bypassing
Density Current Venting
Hydrosuction Bypassing

SEDIMENT SLUICING
Is an operational technique in which most of
the sediment load is released with the flow
through a dam before the sediments settle,
thereby reducing the trap efficiency of the
reservoir.

SEDIMENT SLUICING

SEDIMENT SLUICING
To increase the effectiveness of the sluicing
operations, the following properties of the
reservoir are preferred (Sloff, C.J., 1991):
A short reservoir with large incoming
discharge
Reservoirs with high density concentration
Reservoirs with low large outlets
Reservoirs with high outflow

SEDIMENT BYPASSING
The
second
method
that
avoids
sediments from reaching the reservoir
consists of the construction of a bypass
system to redirect the sediment flow.
High river floods which carry lots of
particles are diverted via a bypass
system, such as a tunnel or a side
channel.

HYDROSUCTION BYPASSING

DENSITY CURRENTS
Density currents are defined as the movement
of a fluid through another fluid with a different
density.
They occur in reservoirs due to differences in
concentration of suspended solids, salt
concentration or temperature concentration.
It is formed when the turbid river inflow plunges
below the clear reservoir water and continues as
a density underflow.

DENSITY CURRENT
VENTING

SEDIMENT REMOVAL
Deposited sediments may be
periodically removed by:
Sediment Flushing
Sediment Dredging
Dry Excavation

SEDIMENT FLUSHING
When flushing is
implemented, sediments
that have settled on the
bottom of the reservoir
are washed out from the
reservoir

SEDIMENT FLUSHING
Drawdown Flushing is done when the river
is at low-flow conditions so that drawing
down the water level takes less effort and
does not affect the water supply.
Pressurized Flushing - removes only a fraction
of the amount of sediment when compared to
drawdown flushing. This method is rarely
used and its main purpose is to clear the area
immediately surrounding the bottom outlets

SEDIMENT FLUSHING

SEDIMENT FLUSHING

SEDIMENT DREDGING
Dredging is generally the least costly
and most feasible method of
excavating large volumes of
sediment from reservoirs as it does
not require the reservoir to be
emptied, and a slurry pipeline is a
clean and quite method of
transporting sediment (as compared
to truck traffic).

SEDIMENT DREDGING

HYDROSUCTION DREDGING