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Department of Civil
and Environmental
Engineering
Spring 2017
Establishing a
Suspended Sediment
Rating Curve for Banja
Hydropower Reservoir
by means of ADCP Data
Supervisor:
Nils Rüther
Co-supervisor:
Hanne Nøvik & Massimo
Guerrero
In cooperation with:
Statkraft
Sigurd Sørås
MASTER THESIS
Background
Hydropower is one of the main sources of
sustainable energy in the world today. Electricity
is produced by harnessing the potential energy
in water stored in man-made reservoirs. The
construction of such artificial storages of
water will disturb the natural processes in
the river, with one of these processes being
the transportation of eroded material. This
eroded mass, or sediments, will accumulate
in the reservoir created for energy production
and can cause large problems for the power
plant. Many reservoirs are today facing big
problems due to the original designer ignoring
or underestimating the issue at the time of
construction. This could have been avoided by
better and cheaper predictions of sediment yield
used in the design process.
Data from such predictions will also be very
useful for designing sediment handling
measures in already existing plants.
The present study investigates the possibility to
monitor suspended load concentration with an
advanced, continuous logging system in order
to establish a concentration rating curve for a
hydropower plant in the Devoll river catchment
in Albania. The systemwill utilize the technology
in ADCP. The project will also compare this to
other techniques, such as continuous satellite
measurements with InSAR. If proven to be
successful, this system can be used for many
other cases in order to improve the data base for
planning and designing.
InSAR coverage of Devoll catchment
Suspended sediment concentration in the Devoll River
(Guerrero et al., 2016)