Sedimentation and Flood assessment for the expansion of Kingston Harbour, Jamaica

Sedimentation and Flood assessment for the expansion of Kingston Harbour, Jamaica

Kerssens, P.
Verreijken, K.
Vermerris, P.
Wijs, J.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Hydraulic Engineering

2012-09-26

Student project report, in cooperation with Smith-Warner International Ltd. (SWIL), Kingston, Jamaica. At this moment the shipping channels in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, slowly accrete. When the harbour is expanded, the local and global sediment transport is likely to change. During this project it is investigated whether these changes are significant and if they will have a negative influence on the Kingston Harbour area. Also the increase of flood risk for the area surrounding Hunts Bay is investigated. This investigation is done by modeling the hydrodynamics of the Kingston Harbour area with MIKE21 and Delft3D, where after both modeling programs are compared to each other. For the input data for the models, research has been done concerning the boundary conditions. This data is gathered from several projects done in the past about other areas in the harbour and fieldwork in Hunts Bay. During the year, most of the wind comes from the east and south-east direction. There are also two mayor streams which debouch into Hunts Bay, namely the Sandy Gully and the Rio Cobre. Since there is only discharge known about the Rio Cobre (daily values from 1985 to 2010), only the Rio Cobre is taken into account. The maximum measured value was 563 m3/s (during hurricane IVAN) and the average value is about 12 m3/s. For the sediment input data some fieldwork is done in Hunts Bay to gather information about the type of soil. From this it is concluded that it is silt, which is confirmed after a lab research of the sediment. However these accurate soil properties couldn’t be implemented into the models due to the lack of time. During the fieldwork also a bathymetric survey was done, which showed that Hunts Bay is sedimented compared to the previously used bathymetric data, gathered from admiralty charts in 2000. Calibration of both models is done by comparing it with the measured water level and flow velocities underneath the Causeway Bridge. Since this is the only point where data was available for, the calibration kept global, and should be improved in the future. The modeling showed that most of the sediment transport into the shipping channel is caused by the high discharge of the Rio Cobre. Ivan showed the most extreme sedimentation and the biggest change due to the expansion. In the present situation the shipping channel is gradually silting, with two areas where the siltation is concentrated. With the first phase expansion these ‘mountainous’ areas will be much more concentrated. However it can be concluded that the changes in the sediment transport due to the first phase expansion are not significant and will not lead to more problems than there are without this expansion. For this problem a sediment trap is proposed. At first it was placed just eastward of the Causeway Bridge, but this didn’t solve the problem and it would be in the way for the phase two expansion. Therefore a sand trap is designed in Hunts Bay, just westward of the Causeway Bridge. This location is really effective, since it stores the sediment from the rivers. This solution prevents the shipping channel to silt. Again, since the lack of reference data, on the size of the pit nothing can be said.

Jamaica
sedimentation
fine sediment
Hurricane

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TU Delft, Section Hydraulic Engineering

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