The creation of river dams and the storage of water have been a strategy for survival for many centuries. Reservoirs have diverse functions, providing irrigation, water supply, storage of water, flood control, navigation and power generation. The silting of a reservoir is an unavoidable process. Although it cannot be halted, silting can be slowed down and controlled by a variety of soil conservation practices and by modifying agricultural practices in the catchment area. Other methods of reducing silting include the placing of certain engineering structures in the river system and the introduction of adequate strategies of reservoir operation. Silting and Desilting of Reservoirs includes aspects such as hydraulics, sediment transport, silting, sediment distribution, calculation and prediction of silting and solutions to reservoir silting.

Despite the mechanisms of reservoir sedimentation being well known for a long time, sustainable and preventive measures are rarely taken into consideration in the design of new reservoirs. To avoid operational problems of powerhouses, sedimentation is often treated for existing reservoirs with measures which are efficient only for a limited time.Th

Research on reservoir sedimentation in recent years has been aimed mainly at water resources projects in developing countries. These countries, especially in Africa, often have to cope with long droughts, flash floods and severe erosion problems. Large reservoir capacities are required to capture water provided by flash floods so as to ensure the supply of water in periods of drought. The problem arising however is that these floods, due to their tremendous stream power, carry enormous volumes of sediment which, due to the size of reservoirs, are virtually deposited in toto in the reservoir basin, leading to fast deterioration of a costly investment. Accurate forecasting of reservoir behaviour is therefore of the utmost importance. This book fills a gap in current literature by providing in one volume comprehensive coverage of techniques required to practically investigate the effects sediment deposition in reservoirs has on the viability of water resources projects.

Focusing on reservoir sedimentation management and control, this work defines the nature and severity of sedimentation, reviews relevant physical processes, describes techniques used to combat sedimentation, and presents detailed case studies.

The 26 papers in this volume cover: catchment treatment and reservoir sediment ation; de-silting and silt disposal; modelling techniques; hydraulic design considerations; and mechanical design and material technology.

Siltation in reservoirs has become an important problem when dams are getting older and stop functioning when the sediment has accumulated to a certain extent. With proper sediment management techniques, negative effects of sediment can be avoided and reservoir life and performance can be improved. This volume deals with reservoir sedimentation, deposition and removal. It provides the principles of sediment transport and gives guidelines to predict reservoir life. It presents several removal techniques, accompanied with detailed operation descriptions. With the help of the RESCON open source software, cost analysis tools to determine the optimum method for maintenance and operation of a reservoir can be applied. To illustrate practice and to assist the reader in setting up a sediment management operation, a number of case studies of existing large dams are included. Written by two experts on reservoir operation, this volume is intended for professionals and advanced students working on dam and reservoir design, construction, operation, maintenance and rehabilitation.