HR: 0800h
AN: H41D-0770    [Abstracts]
TI: Insights About Channel Width Controls Based on Channel Narrowing Below Dams
AU: * Schmidt, J C
EM: jack.schmidt@usu.edu
AF: Utah State University, Watersehd Sciences Department, Logan, UT 84321-5210, United States
AB: All channels narrow under conditions of flood reduction, such as downstream from dams, but the magnitude of narrowing is highly variable. Channel width changes on 61 dam-impacted reaches covering more than 4000 km of six large rivers of the western United States (Missouri, Rio Grande, Colorado, Trinity, Snake, Deschutes) were reviewed in an extensive literature search, supplemented by field studies on the Rio Grande, Colorado River and its tributaries, and Snake River. These studies demonstrate that narrowing occurs under conditions of post-dam sediment deficit and surplus, indicating that the primary control on width is not sediment mass balance. However, channel width changes are not related to flood reduction in a simple way, such as would be predicted by downstream hydraulic geometry relations. Narrowing is of larger magnitude on rivers with large suspended sediment loads, and is less obvious on gravel-bed rivers in sediment surplus. Narrowing occurs where beds incise and where this is not the case. Narrowing occurs in the presence or absence of invasive, woody riparian vegetation. Large-scale channel organization, such as distinguishing between meandering and debris-fan affected channels, has a strong effect on the magnitude of narrowing, primarily because the mechanism of narrowing differs between these major channel types. We examined channels whose post-dam 2-yr flood is as little as 0.20 times the pre-dam flood and where channel width narrowed by as much as 0.15 times of the pre- dam width. Field studies were based on extensive analysis of historical data as well an dendrogeomorphic interpretation of floodplain sediments.
DE: 1808 Dams
DE: 1825 Geomorphology: fluvial (1625)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting