Morphological impact of river below dam due to reservoir desiltation operation in Taiwan

Abstract:

The morphological impact of river below dams due to such reservoir desiltation operation was considered and Shihmen reservoir was adopted to discuss such issue due to the new sediment venting tunnel was implemented from 2013 in this study. The Shihmen reservoir had a natural drainage area of 762.4 km² and located at the northern Taiwan. Due to serious sediment deposition problem from 2004 induced by Typhoon AERE, the stratified withdraw facility was built at dam site to avoid the lack of public water and the one of venting tunnel of power plant was designed to vent turbidity current (Fig. 1(a)).

In 2013, the sediment venting tunnel was first operated during Typhoon Soulik and abundant sediment was released to the downstream river. The 2D numerical model with sediment transport consideration was adopted to investigate morphological impact of downstream river, especially at Jiangzicui area in Fig. 1(b). Due to ecological wet land, flood diversion work and ferry boat transportation were concentrated in this area, the sediment transportation and morphological impact is important to be realized. The Fig. 1(b) shows the original morphological bed form before sediment releasing from sediment venting tunnel and Fig. 1(c) shows the simulation results after sediment releasing from sediment venting. It seems 0.2 m morphological changing due to this operation. Fig. 1(d) is the field morphological survey after Typhoon Soulik and comparison to Fig. 1 (b), not significantly deposition or erosion is observed. According to the grain size of released sediment from Shihmen reservoir, d₅₀ is approximately 10 μm and it is belonged to fine sediment. Therefore, the released sediment is classified clay and for the morphological impact is not significantly. So, morphological impact of downstream river below Shihmen dam due to reservoir desiltation operation is unapparent after Typhoon Soulik at Jiangzicui area.

Keywords: venting tunnel, turbid current, morphological impact, 2D numerical model.

Figure 1 (a) Sketch of sediment venting tunnel and power plant tunnel; (b)Morphological bed elevation before sediment released operation; (c) Simulated morphological impact of 2D numerical model； (d) Morphological survey after sediment released operation.