Subcommittee on Sedimentation ( SOS)

1. Subcommittee on Sedimentation(SOS) 2007 Report February 21, 2008 Jerry Webb USACE

2. Subcommittee on Sedimentation • Change in SOS Leadership at October 2007 • Big Thanks to Past Chair – Jeff Bradley ASCE Representative West Consultants • Current Chair – Tim Randall U.S.B.R. • Vice Chair – Jerry Webb U.S.A.C.E.

3. Subcommittee on Sedimentation • Active Committee w/ No Workgroupsl, July, October • Quarterly Telephone Conference Calls • Two Face-to-Face meetings per year • May 8, 2007 USBR-Denver Federal Center • Oct 19, 2007 Washington, DC- DOT Office

4. Participants • U.S. Department of the Interior • Bureau of Land Management • Bureau of Reclamation • Geological Survey • National Park Service • Office of Surface Mining • U.S. Department of Agriculture • Agricultural Research Service • Forest Service • Natural Resources Conservation Service • U.S. Department of Defense • Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers • U.S. Department of Transportation • Federal Highway Administration • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency • American Society of Civil Engineers • Colorado Water Resources Research Institute • Universities Council on Water Resources-Institute of Water Research

5. SOS Prospectus2007-2012 The prospectus describes the major sediment issues confronting the nation, the structure of Subcommittee on Sedimentation (SOS), and the SOS activities to coordinate and share data, and other information, to help address these national issues.

6. SEDIMENT ISSUES CONFRONTING THE FEDERAL SECTOR, 2007 The nation’s sediment issues can be linked through a watershed or river basin perspective, which in many cases involves coastal sediment processes. Sediment issues that need to be addressed when considering management of our nation’s watersheds and river basins: • Sediment Production from Land-Use Change. • Sediment-related Hazards. • Environmental Concerns. • Reservoir Sedimentation. • River Channel Processes. • Port and Channel Operation and Maintenance (including dredging). • Dam Removal or Rehabilitation. • Geomorphic Responses. • Interstitial Hydraulics and Sediment Movement. • Coastal Processes. • Coastal Sediment Delivery and Management, • Effect of Episodic Events on Coastal-Sediment Transport and Morphology.

7. SOS Long-Term Goals • Determine the major sediment-related problems and issues facing the United States in the 21st century. • Coordinate the development of countermeasures to reduce sediment problems on our water resources. • Provide standardized information and data that are scientifically defensible for policy-makers. • Coordinate and pool the resources of the participating agencies in order to effectively share information and consolidated sediment databases and address important sediment problems. • Promote the analysis of sediment data from a watershed or river basin perspective.

8. SOS – Workshop/Conferences • Sponsored International Bedload Surrogate Monitoring Workshop, April 11-14, 2007 Workshop convened at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, MN as part of the Bedload Research International Cooperative (BRIC). Web site is: www.nced.umn.edu/BRIC_2007. The BRIC workshop goals were: • Summarize the status of progress in bedload-surrogate technologies • Provide access to bedload and ancillary data worldwide • Establish and implement a BRIC benchmark network. • Proceedings of the workshop will be produced in 2008.

9. Proposal by USGS Oregon Water Science Center to host the First Reservoir Sediment Management Workshop: Decision Framework for Dam Removal; • Workshop scheduled to be held early FY09, hosted by USGS in Portland, OR, and Vancouver, WA • The workshop objective is to develop a decision framework to determine the types and amounts (level) of sediment data collection, analysis, modeling, and monitoring that are needed for a successful dam removal or sediment sluicing project. The dam removal decision framework can be used as a tool to help assess the probable impact of dam removal, and subsequently, the level of required mitigation. The necessary level of investigation and mitigation would depend on the type of action being considered (e.g., full or partial dam removal, reservoir sediment sluicing).

10. SOS – Workshop/Conferences • Working with Subcommittee on Sedimentation to plan for 2010 Joint Hydrologic Modeling and Sedimentation Conference – Recommended location is the Riviera Convention Center Las Vegas NV; Tentative Dates June 27-July 1, 2010 - SOS has approved.

11. RESIS-II Reservoir Sedimentation Survey Information System (RESIS-II) Database Appreciation to John Gray-USGS for preparation of this section of presentation. Picture source: http://water.usgs.gov/owq/WQimages/reservoir.html

12. Background Soil Conservation Service to ~1993 • Database of ~1,820 Federal Reservoirs initiated by the Soil Conservation Service • Earliest data from 1755; most recent, 1993 • About 6,000 reservoir surveys • Goal: Provide “some measure of the reservoir siltation problem in the U.S.” (1973) USGS ~1999 to present • A search for the “missing link” in the global carbon budget focused on reservoirs • Stallard and Mixon, and then Sundquist and Ackerman ported the database to Access format, georeferenced, and generally rendered the database usable over the last ~8 years as part of their research. Thus was born “RESIS-II.” SOS ~1997 to present • NRCS’s Jerry Bernard has been looking for a “home” for RESIS-II since at least 1997. • Then SOS-Chair John Gray presented the RESIS-II concept to the ACWI on 9/15/2004; the concept was met favorably by the ACWI. • Security issues following 9/11 regarding georefrencing no longer an impediment. • USGS, in cooperation with USBR, USACE, and other SOS organizations, proposes to put the application on-line – predicated on the availability of internal resources

13. Options for RESIS-II Minimum • Post Access Database and .pdf files of original surveys (short-term goal by USGS in support of SOS) Better • Do the Minimum, plus • Enable web-based, quality-controlled entry of new existing reservoir surveys through agencies responsible for reservoir management Best, or Close To It • Do the Better, plus • Develop a web-based application to add reservoir data (old and new) • Develop on-line analytical capability.

14. Examples of data of interest in RESIS-II • Location (lat/lon, county, nearest post office) • Date storage/operation began • Size (length/width) of reservoir • Total drainage area • Net sediment contributing area • Storage capacity of reservoir • Sediment volume • Multiple surveys – rates of change

15. RESIS-II Data are the Tip of the Tip of the Iceberg…! RESIS-II • ~1,820 Federal Reservoirs National Inventory of Dams (NID) • 79,000 dams (and presumably about same # of reservoirs) • About half of RESIS-II reservoirs are x-listed in NID USGS National Hydrography Dataset, and Bill Renwick • At least 6 MILLION impoundments in the U.S. • Most are ‘upland’ stock ponds • Represent nearly ¼ of the drainage area in the U.S.?

16. Questions/Discussion