Extending the Life of Reservoirs

Training Course on Sediment Management in Reservoirs

and Run-of-River Hydropower Plants
Application of Reservoir Conservation Model RESCON2
October 4-6, 2017 I Hotel Shangrila, Bangkok, Thailand I

Reservoir sedimentation and climate change impact the performance of surface water supply,
hydropower and flood control infrastructure. The reduced rate of dam construction throughout the
world combined with storage loss due to sedimentation currently result in more storage being lost
annually than added. This problem is further exacerbated by population growth and increasing water
demand per capita, which results in a sharply declining storage volume per capita. Climate change will
Extending the Life of
Reservoirs

further impact the performance of reservoirs, in some regions by reducing mean annual runoff and
in all regions by increasing hydrologic variability. Given the paucity of undeveloped new dam sites in
watersheds where extensive dam construction has already been undertaken, in the future it will be
necessary to focus increasingly on storage preservation. Hence, whereas the 20th century focused on
reservoir development, the 21stcentury will necessarily focus on sediment management; the objective
will be to convert today’s inventory of non-sustainable reservoirs into sustainable infrastructures for
future generations.

Rapid assessment techniques to assess the impacts of reservoir sedimentation and climate change
and their mitigation measures can assist in making project funding decisions in an effective and
defensible way. This need has been identified by the World Bank who published in 2003 the Reservoir
Conservation (RESCON) approach to identify economically optimal and technically viable approaches
to sustainably manage individual water storage reservoirs for water supply and hydropower generation.
Currently, a decade later, other factors influencing sustainability have emerged. Amongst those are
the uncertainties associated with climate change and the improvement of existing and development
of new sediment management techniques. Similarly, new analysis techniques have been developed
to address the economics of exhaustible resources and associated intergenerational equity issues.
This has motivated World Bank to proceed in an update and upgrade of the RESCON methodological
approach and software tool.

The workshop aims at providing an introduction in the issues of reservoir sustainability and its
importance, reservoir sedimentation and its impacts on water infrastructure performance, planning and
decision making of sediment management countermeasures. The training will comprise a description
of the RESCON2 methodological approach and hands on training on the model set-up, application and
finally results interpretation and post processing. At the end of the workshop the attendees should be
able to identify the risks associated with reservoir sedimentation and perform a systematic preliminary
screening of the available state of the art sediment management techniques.

During the training several case studies from all over the world will be applied with the RESCON2 model.
These examples cover all type of application, from water supply and irrigation to hydropower, including
run-of-river and storage schemes. All sediment management techniques will be demonstrated with the
tool. Projects from the audience and participants can also be modeled together in order to identify and
to discuss the various sediment management options available.

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Agenda

Wednesday October 4
09.00-12.30 Session: Reservoir sustainability
• Reservoir storage and its importance
• Climate change and impact on firm water yield and power generation
• Dual nature of reservoir storage, economics of renewable resources, intergenerational equity
13.30-17.00 Session: Sedimentation and sediment management
• Sediment yield and sediment monitoring
• Prediction and measurement of sedimentation
• Impacts of sedimentation
• Sediment management countermeasures

Thursday October 5
09.00-12.30 Session: RESCON 2: Sedimentation analysis, economic appraisal and climate change analysis
• Demonstration:
Case study: Storage scheme converting to RoR
– Data collection and pre-processing, setup of reservoir geometry, hydrology and economics, climate
change data
– Prediction of sedimentation, firm water yield and economic performance of reservoir
• Hands-on training:
Case study: Storage scheme
– Model setup and calculation of no action scenario
– Calibration
– Climate change analysis
13.30-17.00 Session: RESCON 2: Sediment management analysis (1)
• Demonstration:
Case study: storage scheme
– Setup of sediment management parameters and analysis for catchment management and sediment
routing
• Hands on training:
Case study: RoR scheme
– Catchment management, sluicing, by-pass and density current venting analysis

Friday October 6
09.00-12.30 Session: RESCON 2: Sediment management analysis (2)
• Demonstration:
Case study: RoR scheme
– Setup of sediment management parameters for deposit removal and multiple methods analysis
– Environmental safeguards approach
• Hands-on training:
Case study: Storage scheme
– Flushing, dredging, trucking HSRS and multiple methods analysis
– Environmental safeguards analysis
Trainers

Pravin Karki has over 25 years of professional experience relating to hydropower,

mainly in engineering, international policy and academic research. He completed his
bachelor’s degree in water resources and hydraulic structures from the Czech Technical
University, MSc in hydropower engineering from NTNU Norway, and MPhil from Darwin
College, Cambridge University, UK. He is leading the World Bank’s work on sediment
management and climate change resilience in the hydropower and dam sectors. He
managed the RESCON2 project on behalf of the World Bank.

George Annandale is a consulting engineer with more than 40 years’ experience

specializing in sustainable development of water resource infrastructure, with
particular interests in the impacts of climate change and reservoir sedimentation
on the reliability of water supply and how to mitigate these effects. Dr. Annandale
consults internationally and has worked on projects in more than 40 countries. He was
the technical lead for development of the RESCON approach and conceptualizing and
supervising the RESCON2 project. As author of several books, he is also known for his
expertise in scour of rock.

Gregory Morris is the co-author of Reservoir Sedimentation Handbook, published by

McGraw-Hill. He has over 40 years of experience in consulting and lecturing on water
resource and sediment issues in 30 countries, including work related to sediment
management in reservoirs and hydropower projects on four continents. He was the
reviewer of RESCON 2 and provided valuable improvement recommendations.

Juan Portalatin is a consulting engineer with experience in water resources

engineering, hydrology, river hydraulics, morphology and sedimentation engineering
in Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Haiti, Colombia, Nepal and India. He has extensive experience in
water supply yield modeling of reservoirs and reservoir systems, firm estimated yield
of surface water intakes, modeling of flood hydrology, surface water hydraulics, and
long-term modeling of reservoir sedimentation and management at sites in Nepal,
Haiti, Colombia and Puerto Rico using SRH-1D software.

For further details, please contact:

Pravin Karki, Senior Hydropower Specialist, World Bank. Email: pkarki@worldbank.org
Kate Lazarus, Senior Operations Officer, IFC. Email: klazarus@ifc.org