Revisiting Waal River Training by Historical Reconstruction

Revisiting Waal River Training by Historical Reconstruction

Le, T.B. (TU Delft Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering; Thuyloi University)
Crosato, A. (TU Delft Environmental Fluid Mechanics; IHE Delft Institute for Water Education)
Montes Arboleda, A. (Greeley and Hansen Colombia)

2020

The Dutch River Waal, a branch of the Rhine, has been trained for centuries to mitigate the effects of ice-jams and improve navigation. The works, started in 1850, involved river straightening and narrowing by a series of transverse groynes. Besides fulfilling their goal, the groynes also created the need to raise flood protection works and caused undesirable channel incision. This study assesses the effectiveness of training the river with a longitudinal wall instead of with groynes. The investigation analyzes the long-term response of the historical river with a two-dimensional depth-averaged (2DH) morphodynamic model. The results show that the wall would create two parallel channels, one becoming deeper and the other one shallower. The former would be as suitable for navigation as an equally-wide channel obtained with groynes. The latter would contribute in conveying water during high flow events and improve the river ecology. Training the river with a wall would also lessen channel incision. The best performance is obtained if the wall is built on the channel centerline, starting just upstream of a point bar top.

Delft3D
Flood conveyance
Groynes
Historical Waal river
Longitudinal training wall
Navigation
River morphology
River training

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:28542d17-3090-49d5-b131-d2fb22761f54

https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001688

0733-9429

Journal of Hydraulic Engineering (Reston), 146 (5), 05020002-1 - 05020002-14

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2020 T.B. Le, A. Crosato, A. Montes Arboleda