scholarly journals Spillway blockage caused by large wood in reservoirs

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 02037
Author(s):  
Paloma Furlan ◽  
Michael Pfister ◽  
Jorge Matos ◽  
Anton J. Schleiss

Large wood (LW) elements are often transported by rivers into reservoirs during heavy rainfall events. Large wood has important environmental attributes that benefit the diversification of riverine ecosystems. There are several studies dealing with the transport and behaviour of LW inside streams. However, during flood events, LW tends to create jams or blockages at diverse hydraulic structures inside streams, creating significant problems such as discharge limitations and increased water levels. Even though knowledge on the effect of LW at bridges in rivers with relatively high flow velocities starts to be available, the latter is hardly applicable for reservoir approach flow conditions. Understanding LW blockage processes at a reservoir spillway is essential regarding the safety evaluation of a dam and the surrounding areas. The geomorphologic benefits of wood for stream restoration depends also on our present ability to manage jams and the risk they imply for civil structures when blocked. Therefore, series of systematic laboratory experiments were conducted to analyse blockage of floating stems at an ogee crested spillway equipped with piers. Different LW characteristics were represented in a physical model with cylindrical stems. Results associate the size of stem groups to blockage probabilities and the effect blockages can have on the discharge capacity of a spillway.

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1122
Author(s):  
Monica Ionita ◽  
Viorica Nagavciuc

The role of the large-scale atmospheric circulation in producing heavy rainfall events and floods in the eastern part of Europe, with a special focus on the Siret and Prut catchment areas (Romania), is analyzed in this study. Moreover, a detailed analysis of the socio-economic impacts of the most extreme flood events (e.g., July 2008, June–July 2010, and June 2020) is given. Analysis of the largest flood events indicates that the flood peaks have been preceded up to 6 days in advance by intrusions of high Potential Vorticity (PV) anomalies toward the southeastern part of Europe, persistent cut-off lows over the analyzed region, and increased water vapor transport over the catchment areas of Siret and Prut Rivers. The vertically integrated water vapor transport prior to the flood peak exceeds 300 kg m−1 s−1, leading to heavy rainfall events. We also show that the implementation of the Flood Management Plan in Romania had positive results during the 2020 flood event compared with the other flood events, when the authorities took several precaution measurements that mitigated in a better way the socio-economic impact and risks of the flood event. The results presented in this study offer new insights regarding the importance of large-scale atmospheric circulation and water vapor transport as drivers of extreme flooding in the eastern part of Europe and could lead to a better flood forecast and flood risk management.


Hydrology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Angeliki Mentzafou ◽  
George Varlas ◽  
Anastasios Papadopoulos ◽  
Georgios Poulis ◽  
Elias Dimitriou

Water resources, especially riverine ecosystems, are globally under qualitative and quantitative degradation due to human-imposed pressures. High-temporal-resolution data obtained from automatic stations can provide insights into the processes that link catchment hydrology and streamwater chemistry. The scope of this paper was to investigate the statistical behavior of high-frequency measurements at sites with known hydromorphological and pollution pressures. For this purpose, hourly time series of water levels and key water quality indicators (temperature, electric conductivity, and dissolved oxygen concentrations) collected from four automatic monitoring stations under different hydromorphological conditions and pollution pressures were statistically elaborated. Based on the results, the hydromorphological conditions and pollution pressures of each station were confirmed to be reflected in the results of the statistical analysis performed. It was proven that the comparative use of the statistics and patterns of the water level and quality high-frequency time series could be used in the interpretation of the current site status as well as allowing the detection of possible changes. This approach can be used as a tool for the definition of thresholds, and will contribute to the design of management and restoration measures for the most impacted areas.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 521-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Davis ◽  
Wen-Chau Lee

Abstract The authors analyze the mesoscale structure accompanying two multiday periods of heavy rainfall during the Southwest Monsoon Experiment and the Terrain-Induced Mesoscale Rainfall Experiment conducted over and near Taiwan during May and June 2008. Each period is about 5–6 days long with episodic heavy rainfall events within. These events are shown to correspond primarily to periods when well-defined frontal boundaries are established near the coast. The boundaries are typically 1 km deep or less and feature contrasts of virtual temperature of only 2°–3°C. Yet, owing to the extremely moist condition of the upstream conditionally unstable air, these boundaries appear to exert a profound influence on convection initiation or intensification near the coast. Furthermore, the boundaries, once established, are long lived, possibly reinforced through cool downdrafts and prolonged by the absence of diurnal heating over land in generally cloudy conditions. These boundaries are linked phenomenologically with coastal fronts that occur at higher latitudes.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 875
Author(s):  
Li Zhou ◽  
Lin Xu ◽  
Mingcai Lan ◽  
Jingjing Chen

Heavy rainfall events often cause great societal and economic impacts. The prediction ability of traditional extrapolation techniques decreases rapidly with the increase in the lead time. Moreover, deficiencies of high-resolution numerical models and high-frequency data assimilation will increase the prediction uncertainty. To address these shortcomings, based on the hourly precipitation prediction of Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System-Cycle of Hourly Assimilation and Forecast (GRAPES-CHAF) and Shanghai Meteorological Service-WRF ADAS Rapid Refresh System (SMS-WARR), we present an improved weighting method of time-lag-ensemble averaging for hourly precipitation forecast which gives more weight to heavy rainfall and can quickly select the optimal ensemble members for forecasting. In addition, by using the cross-magnitude weight (CMW) method, mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient (CC), the verification results of hourly precipitation forecast for next six hours in Hunan Province during the 2019 typhoon Bailu case and heavy rainfall events from April to September in 2020 show that the revised forecast method can more accurately capture the characteristics of the hourly short-range precipitation forecast and improve the forecast accuracy and the probability of detection of heavy rainfall.


Author(s):  
Chanil Park ◽  
Seok-Woo Son ◽  
Joowan Kim ◽  
Eun-Chul Chang ◽  
Jung-Hoon Kim ◽  
...  

AbstractThis study identifies diverse synoptic weather patterns of warm-season heavy rainfall events (HREs) in South Korea. The HREs not directly connected to tropical cyclones (TCs) (81.1%) are typically associated with a midlatitude cyclone from eastern China, the expanded North Pacific high and strong southwesterly moisture transport in between. They are frequent both in the first (early summer) and second rainy periods (late summer) with impacts on the south coast and west of the mountainous region. In contrast, the HREs resulting from TCs (18.9%) are caused by the synergetic interaction between the TC and meandering midlatitude flow, especially in the second rainy period. The strong south-southeasterly moisture transport makes the southern and eastern coastal regions prone to the TC-driven HREs. By applying a self-organizing map algorithm to the non-TC HREs, their surface weather patterns are further classified into six clusters. Clusters 1 and 3 exhibit frontal boundary between the low and high with differing relative strengths. Clusters 2 and 5 feature an extratropical cyclone migrating from eastern China under different background sea-level pressure patterns. Cluster 4 is characterized by the expanded North Pacific high with no organized negative sea-level pressure anomaly, and cluster 6 displays a development of a moisture pathway between the continental and oceanic highs. Each cluster exhibits a distinct spatio-temporal occurrence distribution. The result provides useful guidance for predicting the HREs by depicting important factors to be differently considered depending on their synoptic categorization.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2463-2468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Tramblay ◽  
L. Neppel ◽  
J. Carreau

Abstract. In Mediterranean regions, climate studies indicate for the future a possible increase in the extreme rainfall events occurrence and intensity. To evaluate the future changes in the extreme event distribution, there is a need to provide non-stationary models taking into account the non-stationarity of climate. In this study, several climatic covariates are tested in a non-stationary peaks-over-threshold modeling approach for heavy rainfall events in Southern France. Results indicate that the introduction of climatic covariates could improve the statistical modeling of extreme events. In the case study, the frequency of southern synoptic circulation patterns is found to improve the occurrence process of extreme events modeled via a Poisson distribution, whereas for the magnitude of the events, the air temperature and sea level pressure appear as valid covariates for the Generalized Pareto distribution scale parameter. Covariates describing the humidity fluxes at monthly and seasonal time scales also provide significant model improvements for the occurrence and the magnitude of heavy rainfall events. With such models including climatic covariates, it becomes possible to asses the risk of extreme events given certain climatic conditions at monthly or seasonal timescales. The future changes in the heavy rainfall distribution can also be evaluated using covariates computed by climate models.


Author(s):  
P K Bhunya ◽  
Sanjay Kumar ◽  
Sunil Gurrapu ◽  
M K Bhuyan

In recent times, several studies focused on the global warming that may affect the hydrological cycle due to intensification of temporal and spatial variations in precipitation. Such climatic change is likely to impact significantly upon freshwater resources availability. In India, demand for water has already increased manifold over the years due to urbanization, agriculture expansion, increasing population, rapid industrialization and economic development. Numerous scientific studies also report increases in the intensity, duration, and spatial extents of floods, higher atmospheric temperatures, warmer sea, changes in precipitation patterns, and changing groundwater levels. This work briefly discusses about the present scenario regarding impact of climate change on water resources in India. Due to the insufficient resolution of climate models and their generally crude representation of sub-grid scale and convective processes, little confidence can be placed in any definite predictions of such effects, although a tendency for more heavy rainfall events seems likely, and a modest increase in frequency in floods. Thus to analyses this effect, this work considers real problems about the changing flood characteristics pattern in two river regions, and the effect of spatial and temporal pattern in rainfall. In addition to these, the work also examines the trend of groundwater level fluctuations in few blocks of Ganga–Yamuna and Sutlej-Yamuna Link interfluves region. As a whole, it examines the potential for sustainable development of surface water and groundwater resources within the constraints imposed by climate change.


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