Tailoring dam structures to water quality predictions in new reservoir projects: assisting decision-making using numerical modeling

Abstract

Selection of reservoir location, the floodable basin forest handling, and the design of dam structures devoted to water supply (e.g. water outlets) constitute relevant features which strongly determine water quality and frequently demand management strategies to be adopted. Although these crucial aspects should be carefully examined during dam design before construction, currently the development of ad hoc limnological studies tailoring dam location and dam structures to the water quality characteristics expected in the future reservoir is not typical practice. In this study, we use numerical simulation to assist on the design of a new dam project in Spain with the aim of maximizing the quality of the water supplied by the future reservoir. First, we ran a well-known coupled hydrodynamic and biogeochemical dynamic numerical model (DYRESM-CAEDYM) to simulate the potential development of anoxic layers in the future reservoir. Then, we generated several scenarios corresponding to different potential hydraulic conditions and outlet configurations. Second, we built a simplified numerical model to simulate the development of the hypolimnetic oxygen content during the maturation stage after the first reservoir filling, taking into consideration the degradation of the terrestrial organic matter flooded and the adoption of different forest handling scenarios. Results are discussed in terms of reservoir design and water quality management. The combination of hypolimnetic withdrawal from two deep outlets and the removal of all the valuable terrestrial vegetal biomass before flooding resulted in the best water quality scenario.