River engineering

About: River engineering is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 435 publications have been published within this topic receiving 10286 citations. The topic is also known as: Channelisation.

Simulation of the great flood of December 1870 in Rome

Abstract: The inundation of the town of Rome during the great Tiber River flood of December 1870 is simulated by a depth-integrated two-dimensional varied flow model, using a constant inflow equal to the peak discharge of the flood. The model fits satisfactorily to the observed water elevations, both in the river and in the flooded areas. The development of the model is an important step in a research programme aimed at the reconstruction of the stage–discharge relationship of the Ripetta gauge in the nineteenth century, before that extensive work, undertaken in order to protect Rome from inundation, led to the present configuration of the riverbed. The use of the model allows some further insight into the behaviour of the flood in the flooded areas of the town. As an example, the peak river levels of the greatest historical flood, that of 1598, were used to simulate the flow, resulting in an estimated peak discharge of 4070 m3/s.

Biodiversity and land use history of the alpine riparian landscapes (the example of the Isère river valley, France)

Abstract: We present a regional land use history of the Isere river floodplain downstream of Albertville (France). The case study was representative of dyked hydrosystems of European piedmonts which currently exhibit two subsystems: a flooded alluvial area (inside the dykes) and a protected against floods area (outside the dykes). Our objectives were to develop a history of changes of functions, land covers and subsequent biological diversity during the last two centuries. The aim of the work was to use this history to understand how human activities have altered land cover and the ecological integrity of alpine floodplains, mainly since the development of civil engineering works (beginning of the 18th century). We compiled and interpreted available information on plant, agriculture, forestry, river engineering and various physical resources over time. Since the 18th century, 90% of the floodplain has been converted to crops, poplar plantations, gravel pits, roads and urbanised areas. For a small (1800 ha) but representative reach (the Isere/Arc rivers confluence), we examined more precisely the changes occuring within the riparian landscape. Today, riparian forests, wetlands and dry grasslands survive in small patches. Using historical reconstruction and mapping at four periods (by 1750, 1870, 1937, 2000) we show that these communities have colonised various and different areas over space and time.

Hydromorphological attributes for all Australian river reaches derived from Landsat dynamic inundation remote sensing

Abstract: . Hydromorphological attributes such as flow width, water extent, and gradient play an important role in river hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes and can help to predict river conveyance capacity, discharge, and flow routing. While there are some river width datasets at global or regional scales, they do not consider temporal variation in river width and do not cover all Australian rivers. We combined detailed mapping of 1.4 million river reaches across the Australian continent with inundation frequency mapping from 27 years of Landsat observations. From these, the average flow width at different recurrence frequencies was calculated for all reaches, having a combined length of 3.3 million km. A parameter γ was proposed to describe the shape of the frequency–width relationship and can be used to classify reaches by the degree to which flow regime tends towards permanent, frequent, intermittent, or ephemeral. Conventional scaling rules relating river width to gradient and contributing catchment area and discharge were investigated, demonstrating that such rules capture relatively little of the real-world variability. Uncertainties mainly occur in multi-channel reaches and reaches with unconnected water bodies. The calculated reach attributes are easily combined with the river vector data in a GIS, which should be useful for research and practical applications such as water resource management, aquatic habitat enhancement, and river engineering and management. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.25914/5c637a7449353 (Hou et al., 2019).

Long-term sediment transport and delivery of the largest distributary of the Mississippi River, the Atchafalaya, USA

Abstract: River engineering in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River system and changing land use practices in the Upper Mississippi River Basin have reduced sediment loads and modified sediment distribution to the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Concurrently, the Louisiana Gulf coast has been subject to the highest rate of relative sea-level rise of any region in the United States. This study investigated suspended sediment transport and delivery from the Atchafalaya River, a 187-km-long river-swamp system that carries about 30% of the Mississippi River's water into the Gulf of Mexico. The study modelled long-term (1975―2004) riverine sediment fluxes, assessed land area changes in the Atchafalaya Bay, and analysed the relationship between riverine sediment supply and the delta fan process. The study showed a sediment inflow of 6.4 x 10 7 tonnes year -1 and a sediment outflow of 5.8 x 10 7 tonnes year -1 in the Atchafalaya. Seasonally, sediment loads were highest in the spring and lowest in the late summer, corresponding to the river's hydrologic conditions. For the past 30 years, the Atchafalaya retained 9% of the inflow sediment, which is considerably lower than the double-digit percentage rates of deposition reported for the period from the 1930s to the 1960s. Satellite image analyses found rapid land accretion in the Atchafalaya Bay during the past two decades. Much of the newly created land area was quickly vegetated, stabilizing the small delta lobes against sediment resuspension.

Estimates of the Manning's coefficient for ice-covered rivers

Abstract: The management of ice-covered rivers presents special issues with respect to planning, design and operation of a water resources project. To address these issues properly entails a good understanding of the hydraulics of ice-covered rivers, where the composite Manning's coefficient is a fundamental parameter. The aim of this paper is to obtain field estimates of the composite coefficient associated with the ice cover and riverbed. Using four different methods, this paper analyses a large volume of winter measurements of water velocities made from shallow ice-covered rivers in Canada. The results show that the composite Manning's coefficient ranges from 0·013 to 0·040 as winter averages, but can vary up to seven-fold through the winter. The slope of the energy grade line is difficult to measure in the field and thus is rarely available; it appears to be about 30% of the water slope. The method for determining the coefficient based on the logarithmic velocity distribution fitted to measurements has shown ad...