Elsevier

Geomorphology

Volume 376, 1 March 2021, 107568
Geomorphology

The impact of run-of-river dams on sediment longitudinal connectivity and downstream channel equilibrium

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107568Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The sampling of RFID PIT-tagged tracers reveals that run-of-river dams have minimal impact on coarse bedload sediment flux.

  • Sediment flux over run-of-river dams is facilitated by the construction of a gravel ramp.

  • Reaches below run-of-river dams have corresponding equilibrium metrics to control reaches unaffected by dams.

  • Virtual velocities vary as a function of drainage area and slope.

Abstract

Considerable research over the past several decades shows that dams, especially large, flow regulating structures, fragment watersheds and serve to disconnect the normative downstream flux of sediment and nutrients. Less attention has addressed smaller, channel-spanning Run-of-River (RoR) dams that are more commonly distributed throughout watersheds. Taking advantage of a suite of RoR dams in New England (USA), we quantify bedload flux into, through, and beyond the reservoir, and we calculate the residence time of gravel clasts.

We used traditional channel surveys to evaluate (dis)equilibrium channel form and develop two equilibrium metrics based on bankfull shear stress and the bankfull Shields parameter. Additionally, we compartmentalize the bankfull channel Shields parameter as a linear combination of bedload and suspended load components to better quantify channel evolution in response to changes in sediment supply. To accomplish these goals, we embedded Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) PIT tags in 791 gravel clasts ranging in size from 15 mm to 81 mm, which were subsequently deployed within and upstream of the impounded reservoirs. Among the 503 tracers that were transported from their deployment location, the median cumulative distance traveled was 30 m and the maximum cumulative displacement during the study period was 758 m. Of the total tagged rocks placed at all five sites, 276 rocks were displaced over the dam, 204 of which spent time in the reservoir between high discharge events; the rest were transmitted through the reservoir and over the dam in a single high discharge event. Among those tracers that spent time in the reservoir prior to transmission over the dam, the average reservoir residence times at the different sites ranged from 19 to 203 days. The median grain sizes of tracers that were transported over the dam were identical to those that moved during the study period and similar to the median grain size of the channel bed. The distribution of virtual velocities of those tracers that moved was approximately log-normal and very broadly distributed over more than six orders of magnitude. An analysis of variance revealed that the distribution of velocities was partitioned into two statistically similar groups; with slower velocities in the two smaller watersheds (13 km2–21 km2) with higher average slopes compared to the larger watersheds (89 km2–438 km2) with lower average slopes. We conclude that RoR dams transmit and trap the upstream sediment supply within the same range of physical conditions that produce mobility and trapping in the river's natural reach-scale morphological units. Because RoR dams are likely not trapping more sediment than is typically sequestered in natural river reaches, these dams do not disconnect the normative downstream flux of sediment nor result in channel morphological disequilibrium downstream of the dam. Reaches below RoR dams have similar geomorphic properties to comparable equilibrium reaches unaffected by dams. However, the minimal effect that small, channel spanning RoR dams have on the morphological equilibrium state of a channel does not suggest that RoR dams have no ecological footprint.

Introduction

By disrupting the downstream flux of sediment and nutrients and blocking the upstream mobility of resident and diadromous fishes (Nilsson et al., 2005; Nilsson and Svedmark, 2002), large dams profoundly affect hydrologic, ecological, and geomorphic systems at local (Brandt, 2000; Church, 1995; Curtis et al., 2010; Gregory and Park, 1974; Juracek, 2000), watershed (Graf, 1999; Magilligan et al., 2008), and global (Syvitski et al., 2005; Vorosmarty et al., 2003) scales. However, in contrast to the considerable research on large, flow regulating dams, less attention has been given to smaller Run-of-River (RoR) dams, notwithstanding their greater occurrence across the landscape. In the United States (US), for example, the National Inventory of Dams (NID) documents >80,000 large dams, while the number of smaller dams may exceed two million (Smith et al., 2002).

Run-of-River dams span the width of the channel but do not impede discharge (Csiki and Rhoads, 2010). They have short hydraulic residence times, with reported values of <2 h (Ashley et al., 2006; Poff and Hart, 2002), and limited sediment trapping efficiency (Brune, 1953), especially at high flows (Csiki and Rhoads, 2014; Pearson et al., 2011). Where some sediment storage occurs, or sediment flux is partially attenuated, the downstream impacts of RoR dams mirror those of larger structures with statistically significant bed grain coarsening (Fencl et al., 2015; Magilligan et al., 2016a) or significant decreases in fine sediment (Csiki and Rhoads, 2010; Skalak et al., 2009). In other cases, RoR dams are not generally observed to create significant discontinuities in channel morphology or sediment character (Csiki and Rhoads, 2014).

The muted downstream impacts of RoR dams are likely caused by their limited sediment trapping efficiency, as evidenced by active scour and fill processes in the reservoir behind RoR dams (Csiki and Rhoads, 2014; Pearson et al., 2011), particularly after the reservoir storage capacity is filled (Major et al., 2012). Pearson et al. (2011) documented that reaches downstream of the RoR Merrimack Village Dam were commonly characterized by episodic deposition and remobilization of material (primarily sand) transported over the dam. Less is known about the transport of coarser material over RoR dams, but Pearson and Pizzuto (2015), based on field observations and 1D flow modeling, hypothesized that sediment deposition in the reservoir constructs a ramp up to the dam crest that facilitates transport of coarse material over the dam. They modeled the potential for coarse sediment transport over an impoundment with a ramp and estimated that clasts up to ~23 mm could move through the reservoir and ultimately over the dam crest. Yet they did not directly observe coarse sediment transport over the impoundment. Casserly et al. (2020), however, recently observed tracer particles greater than the median grain size travelling through and over two low-head dams in southeastern Ireland, and argued that the retention of coarser sediment after reservoir scour events led to transient storage behind the dam and resulted in transient supply-limited conditions downstream.

An important outstanding question is: when sediment flux disruption across RoR dams occurs, is it sufficient to cause channel morphological disequilibrium downstream of the dam? Although significant changes in channel bed grain size are observed downstream of some RoR dams (Csiki and Rhoads, 2010; Fencl et al., 2015; Magilligan et al., 2016a; Skalak et al., 2009), it is unknown if possible covariate adjustments in other channel parameters (i.e., flow depth, slope) are sufficient to compensate for these changes in channel bed grain size such that an equilibrium channel form is maintained even as grain size changes (Curtis et al., 2010; Dade et al., 2011; Renshaw et al., 2019).

Here we focus on the disruption of bedload transport because it is more likely to be affected by RoR dams than suspended sediment transport. To directly link the frequency that bedload sediment is transported over RoR dams with downstream channel (dis)equilibrium, we couple field monitoring of sediment transport over RoR dams using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) PIT (passive integrated transponders) tags in coarse gravel and cobble clasts with detailed reach scale analyses upstream and downstream of the dams to characterize potential channel adjustments following impoundment. Importantly, the goal herein is as much to evaluate the efficacy of sediment transport across RoR dams as it is to document and quantify the ways in which stream channels might maintain equilibrium conditions relative to transient and/or sustained shifts in sediment supply.

Identifying equilibrium is often difficult in fluvial systems as the signal to noise ratio can be muted by the inherent variability of hydrologic and geomorphic processes. At the extreme end where significant sediment trapping and hydrologic alterations occur at larger, flow-regulating dams, it is easier to identify channel dis-equilibrium following impoundment (Magilligan et al., 2013). However, for RoR dams where streamflow is minimally altered and sediment trapping is similarly less affected, traditional metrics for evaluating geomorphic change, such as channel width or cross-sectional area (Csiki and Rhoads, 2014), may not be sufficiently sensitive to identify geomorphic dis-equilibrium. To enhance the sensitivity of our analyses, we obviate a singular focus on channel parameters by representing the possible adjustments in terms of the Shields parameter and bed shear stress that simultaneously represent variations in characteristic flow depth, slope, and, in the case of the Shields parameter, grain size, to characterize (dis)equilibrium (Curtis et al., 2010; Dade et al., 2011; Renshaw et al., 2019). Our research questions are: (1) How frequently, if at all, do RoR dams trap bedload sediment; (2) given the frequency of sediment trapping, what is the expected average residence time of sediment within RoR reservoirs; (3) are the downstream channels able to maintain equilibrium vis-à-vis these changes in sediment flux? By taking advantage of the natural experiments provided by RoR dam emplacements that chronically perturb sediment flux in a manner that is fixed in time and space, our research questions seek to improve our understanding of the covariate channel evolution following a disturbance and thereby advance our understanding of the fundamental controls on the equilibrium form of a river channel.

Section snippets

Study sites and background

During 2016–2017, we sampled eight dammed sites (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Table 1) within the Upper Connecticut River watershed, one of the most dammed regions in the US (Graf, 1999; Magilligan et al., 2016b). These dams, ranging in age from 60 to 97 yr old, represent a range of dam heights, slopes, flow regimes, and drainage areas (Table 1). Morphologically, the study reaches are dominated by riffles, pools, and plane bed units (Montgomery and Buffington, 1997). The channel bed surface grain size is

Equilibrium metric

Mackin (1948) first qualitatively linked equilibrium channel form to sediment transport dynamics. To quantify this concept, Dade and Friend (1998) and Dade et al. (2011) noted that conventional sediment transport equations often define sediment flux as a function of the Shields parameter, θ, a dimensionless ratio of bed shear stress τ to submerged particle weight:θ=τρgd=hSRdwhere ∆ρ = ρs − ρf, where ρs and ρf are the solid and fluid densities, g is the gravitational acceleration, d is the

Tracer rock surveys

The percentage of tracers recovered varies by site, from just under half of all tracers at the site with the largest drainage area (MAS) to almost all tracers at two with the smallest drainage areas (CBR and FBR) (Table 2). All sites had tracers that did not move (between 10%–29%). Of the 791 total tagged rocks placed at all five sites, 503 tracers were relocated after being transported from their deployment location. Among those tracers that moved and were relocated, the maximum cumulative

Discussion

Unlike larger flow-regulating dams with higher trapping efficiencies and greater accommodation space to store sediment, these results demonstrate that RoR dams intermittently permit coarse sediment mobilization into, and out of, their reservoirs, with maximum grain sizes transported over the dam crest exceeding the median grain size of the upstream sediment distributions and as large at 73 mm. Similar to that observed by Pearson and Pizzuto (2015) at a RoR dam in Delaware (USA) and Casserly et

Conclusion

For the scale of RoR dams we sampled, our results indicate that over decadal time spans they are similar to natural morphological traps in a river reach like deep pools or large woody debris (LWD) that have limited sediment residence times (Fisher et al., 2010; Lisle and Hilton, 1992). During the study period, which included both low and moderate hydrologic regimes, bedload tracer particles moved through the reservoir on the order of days to weeks. Through the construction of a sediment ramp up

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (BCS-1636415), a Dartmouth College Provost Seed Grant, a CompX Grant from Dartmouth's Neukom Institute for Computational Science, and a Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant. We would like to thank Will Shafer, Brad Geismar, Olivia Lantz, and Andrew Crutchfield for help with field work, and both Jonathan Chipman and James Dietrich for geospatial guidance. We greatly appreciate the comments and

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