RIVER ENGINEERING

WITH REFERENCE TO
THE VAR RIVER
AND ITS LOWER VALLEY
 RIVER CONTROL
• Engineers have developed means to
control rivers:
1. Vertically
2. Horizontally
• In the XXth century, engineers considered
that a river could (or had to be) “tamed”
(see the Mississippi, Rhine and other).

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 RIVER MANAGEMENT
• Today, engineers recognise the need to
“manage” a river, instead of taming it.
• This trend has also to do with the growing
recognition of the ecological values of rivers.
• Managing the river requires a proper
understanding of the functioning of the river
systems.

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 RIVER MANAGEMENT
• This short presentation will be mainly
focussing on the management issues in rivers
like the Var Lower Valley.
• Management will be seen as a combination of
channel control, riverbed management and
flood management.
• The “measures” must preferably be
reversible, to account for unforeseeable river
responses.
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 VERTICAL CONTROL
• When there is a pronounced unbalance
(natural or man-made) in sediment transport
and sediment supply, usually in the upper
reaches (see “LANE’s” balance), a riverbed
will tend to degrade (to incise, to lower).
• Fixed weirs may help stopping the incision
(see the case of the sills n° 2 to 16 in the
Var’s lower valley).
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 VERTICAL CONTROL
• The weirs (or sills) are called “grade-control
structures” (structures to control the slope).
• By diminishing the slope, the power of the
flow is reduced (remember that the power -
i.e. the work that can be done per unit time - of the
flow per unit area is the product of the flow
velocity times the shear stress).

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 VERTICAL CONTROL
• When the river is incised, there is usually no
need to control the river course laterally.
• However, because of the energy dissipation
at the sill, it is recommended to have the
weir with its lateral parts higher, so as to
concentrate more flow in the central part.
• Sills can be build in a variety of materials,
like concrete, gabions, masonry, and other.

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 VERTICAL CONTROL
• Vertical control structures may be studied
with:
1. Scale models for the structure itself (such as a
broad-crested weir of the Var).
2. One-dimensional numerical models to predict
the impact on flow and sedimentation (see
presentation of Lauro Rossi)

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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Lateral control of the river course is needed
to protect something: the valley walls, river
banks, a floodplain, levees, bridges, etc.
• Sometimes, lateral control structures are
built to change the shape of the river course,
for navigation or to ease the evacuation of
the flood waves.

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 LATERAL CONTROL
• There are several ways to control the plan-
form of the river course:
1. River bank revetments
2. Retard structures
3. Groynes, spur dykes
4. Guide bunds (also called guide banks)
5. Vanes

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 LATERAL CONTROL
• In this presentation, only bank revetments
will be discussed in more detail.
• Retard structures are open constructions
through which the flow can pass and that
induce sedimentation of the solids in
suspension (fine material). They may be
built in simple material, and even vegetation
may be used (such as Catkin grass).
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Groynes are structures that are protruding in
the river, to concentrate the flow in only part
of the river, so that eddy flow is created in
between them, where (suspended) sediment
may settle.
• Groynes are always in fields (several ones)
and require most often to protect the opposite
riverbank.
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Guide bunds are heavy structures, usually at
bridges or headworks (mobile dams).
• Guide bunds are required to avoid
“outflanking” of the channel (i.e. the tendency
of the river to erode the bank behind a
structure such as a bridge abutment).
• Guide bunds may help convey the flow
correctly towards a weir (sill).
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Vanes are special structures that induce
secondary (helical) flow, which move the
sediment (bed load) away from the channel
and concentrate the flow in it (protecting thus
the riverbank where the sediment settles).
• Use of vanes requires experience, to know
where and how to put them in place (see the
use of “bandalls” in India and Bangladesh)
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Lateral control structures are studied with:
1. Scale models, for complex geometries.
2. Numerical models for simple geometries.
• The presently available numerical tools
have not yet been able to include correctly
some processes, such as the sediment
transport (bed load) and the way it moves
through the channels.
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Bank protection has been constructed since
ages, not always understanding the
mechanisms responsible for the bank failures.
• The principle is to isolate the bank material
from the flowing water.
• A traditional way was to place over the lined
bank an inverted filter (coarse material at the
water-side, finer at the land-side)
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• A major problem with bank protection is the
scouring of the riverbed at the toe of the
protected slope.
• The traditional solution is to extend the
bank revetment with an “apron” on the
riverbed.
• The extend of the apron is established by
computing the maximum scour depth.
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• In rivers like the Var, the scour depth has
been usually calculated in the hypothesis
that the flow remains parallel to the bank.
• Experience show that this hypothesis is not
correct, and that the flow attacks the bank
obliquely, creating deeper scour holes.

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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Locals have discovered this since long and
have developed their own, original system
that allows the bank protection to glide
deeper in the local scour hole without
threatening the whole structure.
• Concrete blocks are placed over a lined
concrete sloping wall; they glide down as
soon as a local scour appears.
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 LATERAL CONTROL
• Engineers responsible for designing the new
bank protections have ignored the local
experience and use large blocks placed
loose over a geotextile.
• These large blocks produce additional
turbulence, which increase the scour depth
and make the bank protection collapsing
more rapidly.
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 RIVERBED MANAGEMENT
• All structures will create a “response” of the
river, an example being the bank erosion
opposite to a groyne field.
• We have seen, during the visit in the Lower
Var Valley, how the remains of sills n° 2
and 3 control the development of the gravel
bars and the (chute) channels, producing
strong bank erosion.
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 RIVERBED MANAGEMENT
• Dredging and excavations may be required
to correct the negative river response.
• Most important is to understand the
mechanisms producing the unwanted river
response, such as a bank erosion.
• The heavy protection put in place along the
left bank between sills n° 4 and 3 could be
avoided by dredging a channel in the bar.
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 CONCLUSIONS
• River works may be needed to benefit from
the positive aspects offered by a river, as for
navigation.
• River works are sometimes needed to
protect valuable areas or infrastructures,
such as cities or bridges.
• There is a need to manage the rivers taking
into account all its functions.
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 CONCLUSIONS
• River engineering can rely on several tools
for studying possible solutions: models
(scale and numerical) and the field (a model
at scale 1/1).
• Tools are not sufficient, and expertise is
required.

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 CONCLUSIONS
• A challenge for our education system is to
make students aware of this and to generate
their interest for modelling while keeping in
mind the physics and the mechanisms that
are at the basis of the river’s behaviour.
• The Var’s lower valley is a case in which
for sure expertise is required besides tools
such as models.
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