Reservoirs are generally created by damming rivers. The upper reaches of any reservoir is generally narrow and winding like the parent river. This is the riverine zone of the reservoir. The reservoir is deepest and widest near the dam. Here, lake-like conditions exist and the water is quiescent. This is the lacustrine zone. The transitional zone separates the lacustrine and riverine zone. It has intermediate characteristics. There are many characteristics, both physical and chemical, that differentiate between these three zones. Based on the differences in characteristics between the three zones, a method has been developed to successfully divide any reservoir into three zones. The method developed was applied to Lake Manassas and the Occoquan Reservoir located in the Occoquan watershed in Virginia. Both are man-made impoundments. Analysis of data, based on the method developed, was successfully in dividing both reservoirs into the three zones. This method may therefore be successfully applied to obtain zonation in reservoirs. / Master of Science

To investigate the passive force-displacement relationships provided by a transitional zoned backfill consisting of cement treated aggregate (CTA) and compacted gravel, a series of full-scale lateral abutment load tests were performed. The transitional zoned backfill was designed to minimize differential settlement adjacent to bridge abutments for the California High Speed Rail project. Tests were performed with a 2-D or plane strain backfill geometry to simulate a wide abutment. To investigate the effect of skew angle on the passive force, lateral abutment load tests were also performed with a simulated abutment with skew angles of 30º and 45º. The peak passive force developed was about 2.5 times higher than that predicted with the California HSR design method for granular backfill material with a comparable backwall height and width. The displacement required to develop the peak passive force decreased with skew angle and was somewhat less than for conventional granular backfills. Peak passive force developed with displacements of 3 to 1.8% of the wall height, H in comparison to 3 to 5% of H for conventional granular backfills.The skew angle had less effect on the peak passive force for the transitional backfill than for conventional granular backfills. For example, the passive force reduction factor, Rskew, was only 0.83 and 0.51 for the 30º and 45º skew abutments in comparison to 0.51 and 0.37 for conventional granular backfills. Field measurements suggest that the CTA backfill largely moves with the abutment and does not experience significant heave while shear failure and heaving largely occurs in the granular backfill behind the CTA backfill zone.