Impact of dam construction on suspended sediment load alteration

Impact of dam construction on suspended sediment load alteration

Zahra Karimidastenaei ^a*, Hamid Darabi ^b, Ali Torabi Haghighi ^a

 

^a Water, Energy and Environmental Engineering Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4300, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland.

^bDepartment of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

*Corresponding author: Email: zahra.karimidastenaei@gmail.com

 

Abstract

Climate change and human activities have always impacted the fluvial processes, encompassing floods, soil erosion, sedimentation, and sediment transport in rivers, resulting in huge environmental concerns. Dynamics analysis of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is a determining factor in the sediment budgets, and it has an important role in water resources management. In the current research, the relationship of the suspended sediment (SS) with precipitation (R) and flow discharge (Q) has been analyzed to assess the impact of Saveh Dam on the SSC during 1971-1982 and 1983-1994 as pre and 1995-2006 and 2007-2018 as post-impact periods in the Ghareh-chay basin, Iran. To quantify the spatio-temporal variation of SSC (due to climate change and anthropogenic activities such as dam construction and land use changes), a new measure Δα-based approach was introduced. The newly developed approach, referred to as the Δα-based method, was formulated by calculating the angle between (or the change in the slope of) the optimal Precipitation-Sediment (P-S) and Flow-Sediment (F-S) fit lines. This calculation is conducted spatially, encompassing both upstream and downstream locations, and temporally, by comparing data from different periods. The findings showed that Δα for the Precipitation-Sediment (P-S) relationship between upstream and downstream increased significantly after the Saveh dam commissioning. Initially, Δα was measured at 2.69 degrees and 1.35 degrees for the two pre-impact periods upstream and downstream, respectively. However, these values rose to 5.65 degrees and 9.39 degrees in the corresponding post-impact periods. Based on these results, it is evident that the notable changes in Δα for the Precipitation-Sediment relationship between upstream and downstream indicate the dam's impact on the Suspended Sediment Concentration (SSC) patterns in the Ghareh-chay river. The relatively short distance between the upstream and downstream gauge stations further supports the conclusion that these observed changes in Δα are directly attributable to the dam's influence, significantly altering sediment dynamics in the river system.

Keywords: Saveh dam; dynamics analysis; pre- and post-impacted; quantitative approach, sediment rating curve

 

Fig. 1. Location of the study area