Icold Reservoir Sedimentation Bulletins: Case Studies and Bypass Systems

The International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) consists of member agencies from over 100 countries and has more than 25 technical committees dedicated to all facets of dam planning, design, maintenance, and safety. The ICOLD Technical Committee on Sedimentation of Reservoirs has actively contributed to the global state of knowledge on this subject by developing ICOLD bulletins on estimating, modeling and managing sediment in and around reservoirs going back at least 30 years.

This paper and presentation will describe the latest two bulletins produced by this committee that will be of interest to those involved in reservoir sediment management and design. The first is Bulletin 182 “Sediment Management in Reservoirs: National Regulations and Case Studies” which was completed in December 2019. This bulletin provides a concise summary of environmental regulations associated with sediment management activities in different countries and a series of case studies which compare sediment management techniques from various projects around the world. The second bulletin to be presented is in final draft form (and therefore unnumbered) and deals with the subjects of sediment bypassing and transfer. This bulletin deals with methods for sediment bypassing to route sediment arriving at a reservoir either through or around the lake by structures such as channels and tunnels, and sediment transfer to remove already deposited sediments. The intent is that this bulletin will be a resource for practitioners seeking guidance for design and implementation of these methods for either existing projects or those still in design.