Lecture 2

RESERVOIR PLANNING
 Reservoir planning

Reservoir/dam site investigations has three broadly classified stages/phases

1. Reconnaissance
 first survey to collect information about the site, topographical, geological, hydrological and seismicity's
data, are collected from agencies that help for future detail study. Helps to estimate site/location of the
dam, nature of the geology; foundation(no subsurface exploration), stream flow, expected dam height,
reservoir capacity, available head …
2. Preliminary investigation
 Data generated here are more detail than reconnaissance. Survey is made on all sites found suitable
under former survey. Used for economic analysis and preliminary design of sites selected in this survey.
 Used to prepare topo-maps of sites, section profiles of the stream, subsurface exploration to determine
the faults, rock type cracks …runoff data, spillway size, reservoir capacity silt carried by the river
 Investigation to locate construction material site,
 Public utility , telephone, water supply, road that may affect the final selection
3. Final investigation
 It is done only for the finally selected site through the above investigation, final estimate and design are
done.
 Detailed survey to get complete information, so that construction designs are prepared, geologic data
based on boring, and in-situ test, if foundation treatment is necessary detail on level of grouting…,
demarcation of land and people affected after construction, all data for final estimation, design and
location are collected, dam location, tunnel, coffer dam… are marked

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 Reservoir planning

Investigation works , under all levels of investigation

works following issues need to be considered

1. Hydrologic survey

2. Engineering survey

3. Geologic survey to determine

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 Reservoir planning

Hydrologic survey to collect:

 Determination of the catchment yield
 Probable discharge form river gauge
 Rainfall record of the catchment from rain gauge of past
decade and estimate future discharge to fix res. Capacity
 Determining discharge from empirical formulas
 And hence the capacity of the spill way is determined as a
function of the highest flood discharge

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 Res. Plan. Cont.

Yield and capacity of reservoir

 Catchment yield (inflow to a reservoir)

 Reservoir yield: amount of water available in the reservoir at a given

time
 Specific yield : maximum amount available during critical low flow
 Secondary yield: an excess of safe yield during high flow
 Average yield: the arithmetic average of the above

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 Reservoir planning
Reservoir capacity
• Dead Storage: water below the principal outlet (minimum pool level)

• =rate of silting *life of reservoir

• =10% of gross storage (net demand)
• Flood Pool (surcharge) Storage: storage between the normal and maximum pool

level
• Live storage: storage between the normal flood level and the minimum pool level

• Bank storage: storage in the sides of the reservoir (bank) released later

• Valley storage: the base flow before the construction of dam

• Effective storage capacity* = live storage + the surcharge storage – the valley

storage.
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 Reservoir planning
Mass Diagram Analysis (Rippl) Method
Find the maximum positive cumulative 40
difference between a sequence of pre-
specified (desired) reservoir releases Rt and 35

known inflows Qt. 30

Record of historical inflows is used,

25
typically

inflow volume
Example: Nine period-of-record flows: 20

[1, 3, 3, 5, 8, 6, 7, 2, 1] 15
Rt=4
10

1. Plot cumulative 5

2. Add demand line 0

3. Find max deficit 1

Inf low
2 3 4 5
time
6 7 8 9

Cumulative Inf low

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 Reservoir planning
Reservoir capacity
For fixed demand For fixed capacity

1 
4 1 
 01 4
2  01
0 2
Mass inflow (100ha

 100
0

Mass inflow (100ha

 100

 80 70 ha m
  80
Dem
and  Dem
 60
.m/s)

line and
 60
.m/s) 70ha m line300
 2  20
 40 250


0 0  40


0  2
  ha
20 h
1
m m  20 0
/ y  1 0
 0 y e y
e a  0 e
 1950  1955  1960 a 1965
r 1970 a
r  1950  1955  1960 r
1965 1970
 Time (years)
 Time (years)
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 Reservoir planning
Reservoir capacity
Capacity elevation and area elevation curves as
the major purpose of reservoir is to stabilize flow
its important characteristic is its storage capacity
It is determined by area enclose with in each
contour line measured with planimeter.
Usual practice:
 Determine contour at 5 meter vertical interval and then
interpolate for small contour intervals say 0.5m using :

A100.5  [ Ai1 
100.5 100
105100
 
* Ai1  Ai1 ]2

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 Reservoir planning
Reservoir capacity
 Ones if we determine the areas the storage capacity is
given by the average of the consecutive contour areas
times the contour interval.
S   S i
i 1
Water spread area msq m
 Storage at each interval using 50 20 0
simple arithmetic average. 160 Capacity elevation
Ai  Ai 1 curve
S  hi
2

S 
h
3

Ai  Ai 1  Ai Ai 1  Elevation m
130
Area elevation
 Prismoidal method curve

100
h
S  Ai  4 Ai 1  Ai 2  20 150 250
6
Capacity mcm

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 Reservoir planning
Reservoir capacity
Integration technique
It is clear that the integration of area elevation curve gives
the capacity elevation curve.
The area at elevation y as a function of the elevation above a
datum is by:
A    h  h2  ...hn1 n is numberof contourlines
Ay    y  y2 ...yn1 n is numberof contourlines
Ao  
2 n1
A1   y1 y1 ...y1 n is number
of contour
lines

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 Reservoir planning
Reservoir capacity
 For n intervals we have n equations of the above kind, integrating the area equation Ay

 Ay dy     y  y 2
 ...  y n1

0

 
Sy [y 0.5y2  y3 ... yn]k
3 n

 Where k is the capacity of the reservoir at the datum

 Example. Contour survey of reservoir site data, where k is the capacity of the reservoir
at the datum

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 Reservoir planning
Example RC
Reservoir site data

Determine the capacity of

the reservoir . The capacity
Contour value Area of the reservoir at the datum
100 6 ha is 14 ha m.
110 18.1 ha Soln.
120 34.0 ha 1. Determine the Area
elevation formula (i.e.
determine the constants)
2. Integrate the area elevation
equation between 100 and
120 m
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 Reservoir planning
Topography(engineering survey)
 Narrow gorge opening wider upstream(fig. a)
 Down stream, of confluence point (fig. b)

200

200
200
400 230 300
200
300
300 Confluence 400
400
400

Fig b. dam site

Fig .a dam site

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 Reservoir planning
Suitable foundation Material availability
Spillway site Water tightness of
reservoir
Hill lock
shape of reservoir basin
Small submerged area
Accessibility
Minimum overall cost
Healthy surrounding
Other considerations like
political

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 Reservoir planning
Engineering survey
 Its detail engineering survey detail on the site and surrounding grouped in to
three
 Preliminary :that could take place Along with the preliminary investigation,
need for design and estimate of the cost of dam
 using maps 1:500 or 1:2500 determine the storage capacity

 Detail survey to prepare contour map of the dam site for final design, it
consist all the dam, appurtenant, and river diversion works, it extends at least
200m up stream and 400m ds and side ways, contour plan is prepared to a
scale 1:250 or 1:500 using a contour interval of 1 to 2m for dam site and 2.5
to 5m for reservoir area, alignment for communication route is made
 Control survey: it is done for finally selected site, a permanent and
accessible bench mark is established

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 Reservoir planning

Geologic survey
 Preliminary which has been done in preliminary
investigation and detail on rock type combination ,
permeability, joint pattern ….and geologic map is prepared,
using geophysical methods like resistivity …
 Detail this is during the final study , using open pit trench to
see the over burden mantel, or drifting or tunneling and or
core drilling to examine the rock x-stic at depth
 Subsurface exploration: using geophysical, open excavation,
sounding and penetration exploratory boring methods on the
foundation which could be

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