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River Engineering
River Engineering
River Engineering
1.1 General
Rivers are complex and dynamic systems. It often adjusts its roughness, velocity, slope,
depth, width, and plan form in response to human activities and perhaps changing
climatic, geologic, and hydrologic regimes. These adjustments may be rapid or slow
depending upon the sources and characters of the forces generating the adjustments.
When a river channel is modified locally, it may initiate changes in the channel and
flow characteristics that may propagate both upstream and downstream and throughout
tributary systems. These changes may occur over large distances and persist for long
times.
The study of river engineering is traditionally deals with all hydraulic engineering works
undertaken for the purposes of river straightening, flood protection, channelizing natural
watercourses, diverting water from its natural water course for different use, and
improving navigability. River hydraulics includes the evaluation of flow characteristics and
geomorphic (physical) behavior of river and changes in these due to natural or
manmade conditions. The analyses of river hydraulics are essential components of river
projects, and the results from these analyses are often critical for project formulation,
design, construction, and operation throughout project’s life. For example, determination
of dams, spillways, levees, and guide banks requires both hydrological and hydraulic
computations. Major components of studies related to flood plain, flood control, channel
design, navigation, water quality assessment, and environmental impact assessment is
requires the prediction of stage, discharge and velocity as the function of time
anywhere in a river. Environmental aspects of river engineering often require the
prediction of stage, velocity distributions, sediment transport rates, and water quality
characteristics to evaluate the impacts of proposed actions on future river
characteristics.
1.2 Introduction
Water collected together and flowing down slopes form a stream flow. The space
where a stream flow runs is a channel. A river is the general term for a channel and
the water in it. The area supplying water into a channel is a drainage basin. The
boundary between drainage basins is a watershed divide/ridge. A river system is
composed of the main stream and many tributaries. A drainage pattern is plan of river
system.
Rivers have always played an important role in human development and in shaping
civilizations. The primary function of a river is the conveyance of water and sediment.
In addition rivers have many functions, which include the following:
o They continuously change in their forms and patterns (shape, size, position) and
other morphological characteristics in space and time (spatial and temporal) due to
changes in water and sediment discharge.
o Interaction between hydrodynamics, morphodynamics and ecological processes.
River morphology (fluvial morphology) is the study of the forms and patterns of rivers
and the processes that developed these forms by the action of the running water. It is
time dependent and varies particularly with factors such as discharge, water surface
slope, water velocity, depth and width of channel, sediment input and characteristics,
and river bed and bank materials. These factors are inter-related to each other. River
morphology can be substantially influenced by engineering works although this influence
is not necessarily beneficial.
River forms and patterns: river channel geometry, shape and size of channel
cross section.
River channel pattern/ plan form: Straight channel, meandering channel and
braided channel
b. Degrading rivers. If the river bed is constantly getting scoured (eroded) to produce
and dissipate available excess land slope, then the river is known as a degrading
river (fig. 1-1).
c. Stable River. A river which does not change its alignment, slope and its regime
significantly is called a stable river.
Based on the location of river:
a. Mountainous rivers. The rivers that flow in hilly and mountainous regions.
b. Rivers in flood plains. After the boulder stage, a river enters the flood plains
having alluvial soil. The bed and banks of the rivers in flood plains are made up
of sand and silt.
d. Tidal rivers. Just before joining a sea or an ocean, the river becomes a tidal
river. In a tidal river, there are periodic changes in water levels due to tides. The
river receives the sea water during flood tides, but during outgoing tides, it
delivers water back to the sea.
Based on the plan-form of river:
a. Straight rivers. These rivers are straight in plan and have cross-sectional shape of
a trough. The maximum velocity of flow usually occurs in the middle of the
section. Straight rivers may exist in the mountainous region, but they are rare in
flood plains.
c. Braided rivers. A braided river flows into two or more channels around alluvial
islands developed due to deposition of silt.
A river develops various landforms through channel (river morphological) processes. The
main channel processes or fluvial processes are erosion, transportation and
sedimentation. Erosion predominates in the upper reach area of a drainage basin, and
valleys composed of channels and slopes are formed. Sediment load is deposited to
form an alluvial plain.
1.4.1 Erosion
Running water carries sediment (i.e., soil particles) by two processes. One is erosion
and the other is corrosion.
Erosion: Erosion is a hydraulic action and is derived from the energy of running
water. Gravel being brought by running water scours the channel and removes
sediment from the river bed. Erosion makes a channel broader and deeper.
Corrosion. Stream water reacts chemically with rocks and dissolves them. This
process is called corrosion.
1.4.2 Transportation
The higher the velocity of water, the more capacity a river has for transporting
sediment load. There are three different processes in transporting sediment load. They
are corrosion, suspension and traction.
Corrosion: it is the process in which stream water corrodes rocks and brings them
invisibly into solution.
Suspensions: fine materials such as clay, silt, fine sand and materials lighter than
water are transported in the water or on the water surface without contact with the
river bed. This process is called suspension, and materials carried in suspension
are the suspended loads. Suspended load creates the turbidity of stream water.
1.4.3 Sedimentation
A flood caused by heavy rain carries a huge volume of bed load from mountains to
the river plain. When a flood flows from the mountains to a plain, the capacity to
transport bed load is suddenly reduced. Particles of bed load are deposited in order of
their size, and an alluvial plain is formed. An alluvial fan composed of gravel is
formed in the uppermost reaches of an alluvial plain. The surface of an alluvial fan
is like a segment of a cone. The radial profile toward the lower reach is concave and
the cross sectional profile is convex. A delta being developed near a river mouth
consists of fine materials and sand. The morphology of a delta is derived from the
interaction of fluvial and marine processes. A flood plain consisting of natural levees
and back swamps occupies the transitional area between an alluvial fan and a delta.
A natural levee is composed of sand and silt. Clayey deposits distribute in back
swamps are lower and wetter than natural levees.
Alluvial streams are those, which flow through sandy material, shape their channel
through it and carry water and sediment. In dealing with alluvial streams the material
in the bed and banks of the channel is generally assumed to be non-cohesive, though
some of the fine sediment in transport may settle on the banks and make the bank
material cohesive.
Every channel has its own characteristics. However, channels show some common
characteristics in areas of similar landform.
The main factors which is responsible for moldering the behavior of rivers is silt and
sediment that flows in the river. The available energy of the flow is utilized in
transporting the sediment load as well as in overcoming the resistance due to the
viscous action and the roughness of bed and sides. The sediment carried by river
poses numerous problems, such as; increasing of flood levels, silting of reservoirs,
silting up of a river into a number of interrelated channels, etc. Therefore, the behavior
of river can results in the variation of the shape of river cross section and/or its plan
form. Aggradations, degradation, scour and deposition of sediment around beds, and
meandering are a few examples of such changes.
The formation of successive bends of reverse order may lead to the formation of a
complete S curve called meander. When consecutive curves of reverse order connected
with short straight reaches called crossings are developed in a river reach, the river is
stated to be a meandering river (Figure 1-8). In order to study the behavior of a
meandering river, the river may be supposed to follow a sine curve.
There are four variables, which govern the meandering process. They are: valley slope;
silt grade and silt charge; discharge; and bed and side materials and their susceptibility
to erosion. All these factors considerably affect the meandering patterns, and all of
them are interdependent.
The latest and widely accepted theory behind meandering is based upon the extra
turbulence generated by the excess of river sediment during floods. During floods, the
river carries tremendous amount of silt charge. Is has been established that when the
silt charge is in excess of quantity required for stability, the river starts building up its
slope by depositing the silt on the bed. In other words, the river reach becomes an
aggrading or of accreting type. Accretion is the primary process, which consequently
leads to meandering.
1.6.4 Cut-Off
. Cutoffs can be defined as a process by which an alluvial river flowing along bends
abandons a particular bend and establishes its main flow along a comparatively
straighter and shorter channel, as shown in figure 1-9. During the development of
meanders, there is always a lateral movement of the meanders due to their gradual
lengthening. Increased frictional losses and bank resistance tend to stop this lateral
movement. When the bend and the bank resistance become too large for continued
stretching of the loop, the flow finds it easier to cut across the neck than to flow
along the loop. This results in a cutoff. Thus, cutoff is a natural way of counter
balancing the effect of the ever-increasing length of a river course due to the
development of meander. Alternatively, cutoff may be artificially induced for some there
purpose (we will see in chapter 2).