A Study of the Sedimentation and Storage Capacity Depletion of a Reservoir

Abstract Theoretical and empirical equations have previously been proposed to compute the sediment trap efficiency of a reservoir. The empirical equations were developed by analyzing a limited amount of field data for reservoirs in selected areas; thus, their suitability is restricted to reservoirs in regions with similar hydrological characteristics. In this study, a sediment trap-efficiency equation, which accounts for the dynamic behavior of sedimentation and the hydraulic conditions of a reservoir, was deduced from the principle of mass conservation. Using this equation, the approximate analytical expression for the storage capacity of the reservoir was obtained. Both equations were applied to investigate real-life problems involving the impacts of reservoir sedimentation, and their predicted solutions were compared with the field data and the results of the theoretical and empirical equations. The results of this investigation reveal that the proposed equations are capable of simulating the sediment trapping and storage capacity depletion characteristics of large reservoirs, which are a measure of the adverse effect of sedimentation on the performance of hydraulic structures. These equations can potentially be incorporated into a large-scale watershed model for estimating a sediment budget.