TY - JOUR
T1 - Amplification of downstream flood stage due to damming of fine-grained rivers
AU - Ma, Hongbo
AU - Nittrouer, Jeffrey A.
AU - Fu, Xudong
AU - Parker, Gary
AU - Zhang, Yuanfeng
AU - Wang, Yuanjian
AU - Wang, Yanjun
AU - Lamb, Michael P.
AU - Cisneros, Julia
AU - Best, Jim
AU - Parsons, Daniel R.
AU - Wu, Baosheng
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank A. Moodie for post-processing the MBES data and Z.Li for his comments on extreme floods induced by climate change. We appreciate the careful and constructive reviews from Profs Samuel Munoz, Gordan Grant, and an anonymous reviewer. H.M., J.A.N., M.P.L., and G.P. gratefully acknowledge the NSF of the United States for support through Division of Earth Science (EAR) Grant 1427262. X.F. was supported by NSF of China through Grant 51525901. Y.Z. acknowledges support from NSF of China through Grant 51379087. Y.W.(a) acknowledges support from NSF of China through Grant 42041004. J.C. was supported by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (grant no. DGE-1746047) and also the Department of Geology, University of Illinois, and the Jack and Richard C. Threet chair to J.B.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - River dams provide many benefits, including flood control. However, due to constantly evolving channel morphology, downstream conveyance of floodwaters following dam closure is difficult to predict. Here, we test the hypothesis that the incised, enlarged channel downstream of dams provides enhanced water conveyance, using a case study from the lower Yellow River, China. We find that, although flood stage is lowered for small floods, counterintuitively, flood stage downstream of a dam can be amplified for moderate and large floods. This arises because bed incision is accompanied by sediment coarsening, which facilitates development of large dunes that increase flow resistance and reduce velocity relative to pre-dam conditions. Our findings indicate the underlying mechanism for such flood amplification may occur in >80% of fine-grained rivers, and suggest the need to reconsider flood control strategies in such rivers worldwide.
AB - River dams provide many benefits, including flood control. However, due to constantly evolving channel morphology, downstream conveyance of floodwaters following dam closure is difficult to predict. Here, we test the hypothesis that the incised, enlarged channel downstream of dams provides enhanced water conveyance, using a case study from the lower Yellow River, China. We find that, although flood stage is lowered for small floods, counterintuitively, flood stage downstream of a dam can be amplified for moderate and large floods. This arises because bed incision is accompanied by sediment coarsening, which facilitates development of large dunes that increase flow resistance and reduce velocity relative to pre-dam conditions. Our findings indicate the underlying mechanism for such flood amplification may occur in >80% of fine-grained rivers, and suggest the need to reconsider flood control strategies in such rivers worldwide.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-30730-9
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-30730-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 35650197
AN - SCOPUS:85131096599
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 13
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 3054
ER -