Managing Fine Sediment in Regulated Rivers

Abstract:

A paradigm useful in managing dams and diversions is that the combined effects of changing flow regime and sediment supply perturb regulated rivers into sediment deficit or sediment surplus. In the U.S. Southwest, large dams constructed on interregional rivers typically create sediment deficit segments >100 km long. Further downstream, sediment surplus may occur if desert tributaries deliver sufficient amounts of fine sediment, such as parts of the Rio Grande, lower Green River, and Colorado River delta. Sediment surplus also occurs on most smaller regional rivers.

The protocols for managing rivers perturbed into sediment deficit have been refined for the Colorado River downstream from Glen Canyon Dam but are nonetheless challenged by externally determined water-supply agreements that require annual water deliveries that sometimes occur when there has been little tributary resupply. Virtually all of the naturally supplied sand to the depleted, 100-km long Marble Canyon comes from the Paria River. The sand delivery rate since 2012 was sufficiently large to trigger short-duration controlled floods under the High Flow Experiment (HFE) Protocol. The sand mass balance of Marble Canyon since 2012 when the HFE Protocol was adopted was positive due to the combination of relatively large sand delivery from the Paria River and average total annual flows. Large total annual flows have the potential to export large amounts of sand and create a negative sand mass balance. Despite the challenge of managing a scarce and highly variable sand supply and occasional years of large reservoir releases, the long-term (2006-2015) sand mass balance for the upstream half of Marble Canyon is indeterminant and is positive for the downstream half of Marble Canyon.

The apparent success of managing sand in Grand Canyon under deficit conditions suggests that fine sediment management protocols might be developed for other regulated rivers. Implementation would require establishment of networks of gages to measure fine sediment flux. The greatest challenges in implementing these protocols are occasional large volume stream-flow releases to meet water supply objectives in sediment deficit rivers and the resistance to release sediment-transporting flows in sediment-surplus rivers when drought is persistent.