A Comparative Overview of Three Gorges Project''''s Sediment Handling

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A Comparative Overview of Three Gorges Project''''s Sediment Handling

Water projects' sediment deposition problems always cause widespread concerns. The gravity of them varies in accordance not only with reservoirs' natural and socio-economic characteristics but also with their modes of operation. The unique characteristics, configuration and mode of operation of Three Gorges Project (TGP) reservoir are compared with those of several existing large reservoirs in this paper. As many reservoirs are troubling environment by gradually extending coarse sediment deposition at the uppermost end of fluctuating backwater region toward upstream, Gezhouba reservoir on Yangtze and Danjiangkou reservoir on Hanjiang have shown no trace of such upstream extension of sediment deposition in relevant prototype observation data for the past 20 and more years. TGP reservoir's in-coming flow sediment conditions and configuration in plane are almost the same as those of Gezhouba reservoir, and TGP reservoir's mode of operation(usually keeping a very low pool level for flood control in flood season and storing up in-coming flow only thenceafter) is similar to that of Danjiangkou reservoir. New findings of sediment research and prototype flow sediment investigations as well as new agenda of large hydro projects' construction on Jinshajiang in nearest future assure the prospects of TGP sediment handling.