Large-Scale Dam Removal on the Elwha River, Washington, USA: River Channel and Floodplain Geomorphic Change

Abstract:

A substantial increase in fluvial sediment supply causes complex, large-magnitude changes in river and floodplain morphology. Although sedimentary and geomorphic responses to sediment influx are a fundamental part of landscape evolution, few opportunities exist to quantify those processes over field scales. We investigated downstream effects of sediment released during the largest dam removal in history, on the Elwha River, WA, USA, by measuring changes in riverbed elevation and topography, bed-sediment grain size, and channel planform as two dams were removed in stages over two years.

As 10.5 million t (7.1 million m³) of sediment was released from two former reservoirs, downstream dispersion of a sediment wave caused widespread bed aggradation of ~1 m (greater where pools filled), changed the river from pool-riffle to braided morphology, and decreased the slope of the lowermost river. The newly deposited sediment, which was finer than most of the pre-dam-removal bed, formed new bars (largely pebble, granule, and sand material), prompting aggradational channel avulsion that increased the channel braiding index by almost 50%. As a result of mainstem bed aggradation, floodplain channels received flow and accumulated new sediment even during low to moderate flow conditions. The river system showed a two- to ten-fold greater geomorphic response to dam removal (bed-elevation change) than it had to a 40-year flood event four years before dam removal. Two years after dam removal began, as the river had started to incise through the new deposits, approximately 1.2 million t of new sediment (~10% of the amount released from the two reservoirs) was stored along 18 river km of the mainstem channel and 25 km of floodplain channels. The Elwha River thus was able to transport most of the released sediment to the river mouth. The geomorphic alterations and changing bed-sediment grain size along the Elwha River have important ecological implications, affecting aquatic habitat structure, benthic fauna, salmonid fish spawning and rearing potential, and riparian vegetation. Response of the Elwha River to dam removal represents a unique opportunity to observe and quantify fundamental geomorphic processes associated with a massive sediment influx, and also provides important lessons for future river restorations.