MORPHOLOGICAL EFFECT OF FLOOD WATER PATHWAY IN RESERVOIRS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEDIMENTATION

Abstract

In the North Africa countries, sediments deposition in the reservoir dams reduces the available surface water resources by 2 to 5% per year. In Tunisia, even many efforts are made to protect reservoir dams against soil erosion, the sedimentation still very important and constitute a limitation their time duration. In order to better understand these phenomena, bathymetry, turbidity, suspended soil particles and sediments were monitored for two reservoir dams in Tunisia: Joumine and Sejnane. These data will be interpreted in order to better characterize the sedimentation process and identify the determinant factors. Geostatistical Technics are applied to the bathymetric data in order to simulate the evolution, in time and in space, of the morphology of the reservoir dams and to estimate the distribution of the sediments deposits. The results for the two dams will permit to better understand the influence of the initial geometry of the reservoir dams on the sedimentation process and to deduce the main water flow path lines. Turbidity, suspended particles and sediments particles size profiles established for fixed stations in the reservoir dams will be interpreted in order to better understand the sedimentation process in the reservoirs dams and to characterize the influence of the initial reservoir geometry.