The Management of Gravel Extraction in Alluvial Rivers: A Case Study From the Avon River, Southeastern Australia

Davis, Jennifer; Bird, Juliet; Finlayson, Brian; Scott, Ross

doi:10.1080/02723646.2000.10642703

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Channel degradation shortly after mining has been documented in the literature (Collins and Dunne, 1989;Kondolf, 1994Kondolf, , 1998Sear and Archer, 1998;Davis et al, 2000), but few studies, based on field work measurements and focused in a single perennial-to-ephemeral channel reach, have been carried out to analyse the tendency of the river channel to restore the riverbed after the mining cessation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Response of a river sediment budget after historical gravel mining (the lower Tordera, NE Spain)

Rovira

Batalla

Sala

2005

River Research & Apps

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The channel of the lower Tordera River (Catalan Coastal Ranges) was intensively mined between 1956 and 1987, at an extraction rate 14 times higher than the replenishment rates. Mining caused incision of up to 2 m over the whole reach, leading to damage of infrastructures and affecting the groundwater system. In this paper we analyse the response of the river sediment budget by means of sediment transport measurements (both in suspension and as bedload) and topographic surveys. Historical data on mining activities was used to verify current values of sediment transport and to locate the main extraction areas in the long profile of the river. This has led to an integrated methodology that can be useful for assessing and managing current and future sediment deficits in heavily mined rivers. In the lower Tordera, a minimum of 3 million cubic metres of sand and gravel were extracted, especially from two gravel pits still visible as concavities in the river's longitudinal profile. Nowadays, 15 yr after mining ceased, the river shows during dry periods a general tendency towards aggradation (3.6 mm yr À1 on average and up to 12 mm yr À1 in central sections where mining took place), but a slight long-term tendency to erode the riverbed. Sediment yield at the entrance of the study reach attains 552 000 t yr À1, while net sediment deposition reaches 16 400 t yr À1 (78% as bedload), mostly during small floods in dry periods. Estimated time for the river to recover pre-extraction bed-level is of the order of 420 yr.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Response of a river sediment budget after historical gravel mining (the lower Tordera, NE Spain)

Rovira

Batalla

Sala

2005

River Research & Apps

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“…Brown and Banks (2001) noted that, due to changing water levels and stream courses, the wording of legislation may constrain enforcement of the few environmental regulations. There are also management issues associated with land ownership, and constraints including costs and political will in places like Australia (Davis et al, 2000). Given that pit avulsions combine the perimeter and profile changes of in-stream mining with channel position changes, this practice requires greater regulation and management worldwide than has occurred to date.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Mined reaches can widen from material extraction along the channel perimeter or by capturing the anthropogenic form of a pit through migration or avulsion. Degradation is a common response of mining the channel bed (Kondolf, 1994;Davis et al, 2000;Marston et al, 2003) and captures of floodplain pits can have the Downloaded by [University of North Dakota] at 20:07 20 December 2014 same effect. Subsequently, the along-channel pits may trap much of the bed load for decades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Pit Avulsions and Planform Change on a Mined River Floodplain: Tangipahoa River, Louisiana

Mossa

Marks

2011

Physical Geography

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Floodplain mining creates a vulnerable landscape comprised of pits, bare land and stock piles with minimal vegetation. During floods, when stages can exceed bankfull by several meters, all or part of the channel may divert into a pit, re-routing the flow and transforming the planform and profile of alluvial landscapes. Using geospatial data from the mined Tangipahoa River floodplain for 1980 to 2004, the objectives of this study are to (1) assess if pit characteristics such as proximity to channel and size affect the potential for diversion; and (2) interpret relationships between pit diversions, channel changes, and floods. Of the 56 pits mapped in the floodplain in 1980, six had been captured by 2004. Captured pits were closer to the main channel than those which were not captured, but the areas of captured and noncaptured pits were not significantly different. However, avulsions into large pits caused more channel planform change than those into smaller pits. Other findings are that point bar areas increased 72% overall, more so in the mined reach, and that degradation exceeded 6 m in the mined reach, in contrast with aggradation of 1 m roughly 20 valley km downstream. Results will be useful in understanding landscape vulnerability and can be applied to river management and restoration. [

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“…For example, effects of sediment mining on alluvial river incision have been huge (Rinaldi et al, 2005). This has been well documented for the rivers in California (Harvey and Shumm, 1987;Collins and Dunne, 1990;Kondolf and Swanson, 1993;Kondolf, 1994;Kondolf, 1997;Sandecki and Avila, 1997), Washington (Collins and Dunne, 1989), Italy (Surian and Rinaldi, 2003;Rinaldi and Simon, 1998;Rinaldi, 2003), Spain (Rovira et al, 2005), France (Peiry, 1987;Petit et al, 1996;Bravard et al, 1999;Gaillot and Piégay, 1999;Arnaud-Fassetta, 2003), UK (Sear and Archer, 1998), New Zealand (Page and Heerdegen, 1985) and Australia (Davis et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid channel incision of the lower Pearl River (China) since the 1990s as a consequence of sediment depletion

Zhang

Xie

et al. 2007

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. This paper reported a dramatic channel incision (>10 m in the deepest cut) during the past 10 y or so in the lower Pearl River, the second largest river in terms of water discharge in China. The channel incision had caused changes both in the channel geometry as well as in the river hydraulics. Also, the water exchange between the two major tributaries of the Pearl River, the Xijiang and Beijiang, had been significantly changed due to the channel incision. The rapid channel incision was principally the result of extensive sand mining in the lower Pearl River and the delta region due to the booming economy in the Pearl Delta region. Slight increase of water discharge and significant decrease of sediment load since the early 1990s in both the Xijiang and Beijiang also likely contributed to the observed dramatic river bed downcutting to some extent. This has important implications for river management, as the large Chinese rivers have seen a dramatic depletion of sediment fluxes due to the combined effects of declining rainfall, dam constructions, water diversion, reforestation and afforestation, and sediment mining over the recent decades.

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The Management of Gravel Extraction in Alluvial Rivers: A Case Study From the Avon River, Southeastern Australia

Cited by 22 publications

References 14 publications

Response of a river sediment budget after historical gravel mining (the lower Tordera, NE Spain)

Response of a river sediment budget after historical gravel mining (the lower Tordera, NE Spain)

Pit Avulsions and Planform Change on a Mined River Floodplain: Tangipahoa River, Louisiana

Rapid channel incision of the lower Pearl River (China) since the 1990s as a consequence of sediment depletion

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