Practical Method Proposed to Estimate Silting’s Rate in Small and Hillside Dams

Abstract

The construction of small dams and hillside reservoirs is a common practice for dealing with erraticand unevenly distributed rainfalls in arid and semi arid areas. Moreover, these small hydraulicsstructures are recommended as a solution to adapt to climate change in rural areas. They arefundamental for the sustainability of the water resources. However, these dams are potentialsinks for upstream sediment. Therefore, it would be useful to monitor and measure the amount ofsediments in small dams because it is necessary to understand siltation and better functioning ofthese vital structures. This control and these measurements require the application of the bathymetryor topography surveys which is too expensive for the responsible of these small dams. Inthis context, this paper proposes a simple and low cost method called: Triangulation of the estimatedsilted level. This method is based on direct measurement of the accessible silted level indam. This new method is compared with another method based on the initial Elevation-Capacitycurve of dam, usually used when the bathymetry is not attainable. The results of both of them havebeen verified with those of the bathymetry and electrical tomography methods and validated theproposal method as the most approximate. Therefore, this method is recommended as a new directand simple technique to evaluate the amount of silting in small dams and hillside reservoirs.