Water quality implications of artificial flow fluctuations in regulated rivers

Foulger, T.R.; Petts, Geoffrey E.

doi:10.1016/0048-9697(84)90094-9

Cited by 15 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…It is well supported that channel sediment supply plays a crucial role in the transport of sediment during pulse releases (Foulger and Petts, 1984;Jakob et al, 2003). In a pulse release study on the Trinity River in California, Wilcock et al (1996) showed that low discharges selectively transported fine sediments but were not strong enough to loosen the gravel bed structure in order to release sequestered fine sediments.…”

Section: Boundary Condition: Site Amentioning

confidence: 98%

Water quality response to a pulsed‐flow event on the Mokelumne river, California

Henson

Ahearn

Dahlgren

et al. 2007

River Research & Apps

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Controlled water releases from reservoirs (i.e. artificial floods) are used as a management technique to remove fine sediments and detrital materials from spawning gravels, mobilize gravel bars and clear encroaching brush from stream banks. The effects of a managed release event on water quality were investigated on the lower Mokelumne River in the western Sierra Nevada, California. The managed release was characterized by an increase in flow over a 4-day period (from 11 to 57 m 3 s À1 ). Automatic pump samplers were used to collect samples for water quality from 0.7, 16.4, 37.4 and 54.4 km below Camanche Dam. These sampling sites provided water quality data for three distinct stream reaches: a gravel and sand-textured substrate reach (0.7-16.4 km), a reach characterized by lentic conditions associated with a small reservoir (16.4-37.4 km), and fine sand and silt-textured substrate reach (37.4-54.4 km). Water samples were analysed for total suspended solids (TSS), total nitrogen, ammonium (NH 4 -N), nitrate (NO 3 -N), total phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), foecal coliforms and E. coli. Chemographs for all constituents exhibited spikes in concentration with each increase in streamflow for the rising limb. Fluxes of TSS, total P and total N released from the 0.7 to 16.4 km reach were 322, 0.32 and 0.70 Mg, respectively. The small reservoir acted as a sink for particulate materials retaining about 50% of TSS, 48% of total P and 43% of total N. However, the reservoir acted as a source of dissolved nutrients (NO 3 -N ¼ 0.28 Mg and SRP ¼ 0.055 Mg). The stream reach below the reservoir (37.4 to 54.4 km) was a source of particulate materials, dissolved nutrients and bacteria, possibly due to agricultural and urban inputs.

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Section: Boundary Condition: Site Amentioning

confidence: 98%

Water quality response to a pulsed‐flow event on the Mokelumne river, California

Henson

Ahearn

Dahlgren

et al. 2007

River Research & Apps

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“…Thus, Pfitzer (1967) reported fluctuations of water temperature by 6-8°C below hydroelectric power dams in Tennessee, USA. Dam releases may also cause rapid changes in water chemistry (Foulger and Petts, 1984) and turbidity . A release from Kielder Dam to the North Tyne River, UK has been used as a field experiment to examine the relationship between flow routing, seston transport and hydrochemical lags .…”

Section: Effects Of Flow Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water quality characteristics of regulated rivers

Petts

1986

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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Rivers are complex physical, chemical and biological systems determined by processes operating not only within the confines of the channel but also -and perhaps more importantly -on and within the hillslopes of the drainage basin.From headwaters to mouth exists a gradient of physico-chemical factors that exerts a direct control upon the biological strategies and dynamics of river systems, as encompassed in the River Continuum Concept (Vannote et al., 1980). Dams interrupt the pattern of downstream transfers producing discontinuities along the stream continuum (Ward and Stanford, 1983). For the highest level of ecological investigation, namely studies of fish productivity, water quality is only one of eight groups of factors that interact to influence the character of impounded rivers (Petts, 1984). Nevertheless, river impoundment can exert an important influence upon water quality for tens, and in some instances hundreds, of kilometres below a dam. Moreover, the effects can extend not only to the river but also to the nearshore zone.The effect of reservoirs on water quality has been an important focus of research since the late 1950s but it is only since 1979, as a result of the First International Symposium on Regulated Streams, held at Erie, USA (Ward and Stanford, 1979), that researchers have become aware of the full consequences of impoundment for the river downstream. Today, dams are being completed at a rate of two each day (Mermel, 1976), some countries are experiencing increasing dambuilding activity, notably, Argentina, Canada, Spain, India and China (Mermel, 1981), andCroome et al. (1976) have suggested that by the year 2000, about 66 per cent of the world's total streamflow will be controlled by dams. Similar physical and biological processes are operative in large and small reservoirs, although they show profound differences in limnology and management. Furthermore, the effects of an impoundment of particular dimensions will depend upon its geographical location. Reservoirs have been built on rivers in subarctic, temperate and tropical regions, and in arid areas traversed by exogenous streams, such as the River Nile. Spatial variations in water quality are conditioned, within climatic regions, by catchment characteristics, not the least important of which are geology and land use (Gower, 1980). At the global scale, Gibbs ( 1970) classified rivers into three geographical groups by reference to both climate and geology, each of them

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“…Gore and Petts, 1989), typically consisting in sharp releases of water in the river reaches below dams. The unsteadiness related to this highly intermittent phenomenon has cascading effects on both the biotic (Rea and Ganf, 1994;Nilsson et al, 1997;Cereghino and Lavandier, 1998;Blanch et al, 1999;Jansson et al, 2000;Scruton et al, 2008;Bruno et al, 2009) and abiotic compartments (Foulger and Petts, 1984;Montgomery et al, 1999;Bunn and Arthington, 2002;Frutiger, 2004;Sawyer et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Thermopeaking in Alpine streams: event characterization and time scales

et al. 2011

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The present study provides a detailed quantification of the 'thermopeaking' phenomenon, which consists of sharp intermittent alterations of stream thermal regime associated with hydropeaking releases from hydroelectricity plants. The study refers to the Noce River (Northern Italy), a typical hydropower-regulated Alpine stream, where water stored in high-altitude reservoirs often has a different temperature compared with the receiving bodies. The analysis is based on a river water temperature dataset that has been continuously collected for 1 year at 30-min intervals in four different sections along the Noce River. A suitable threshold-based procedure is developed to quantify the main characteristics of thermopeaking, which is responsible for thermal alterations at different scales. The application of Wavelet Transform allows to separately investigate the thermal regime alterations at sub-daily, daily and weekly scales. Moreover, at a seasonal scale, patterns of 'warm' and 'cold' thermopeaking can be clearly detected and quantified. The study highlights the relevance of investigating a variety of short-term alterations at multiple time scales for a better quantitative understanding of the complexity that characterizes the river thermal regime. The outcomes of the analysis raise important interdisciplinary research questions concerning the effects of thermopeaking and of the related short-and medium-term effects on biological communities, which have been rather poorly investigated in ecological studies.

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Water quality implications of artificial flow fluctuations in regulated rivers

Cited by 15 publications

References 8 publications

Water quality response to a pulsed‐flow event on the Mokelumne river, California

Water quality response to a pulsed‐flow event on the Mokelumne river, California

Water quality characteristics of regulated rivers

Thermopeaking in Alpine streams: event characterization and time scales

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