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The spatial and temporal variability and budget of suspended sediment in Taiwan major rivers

¡@¡@Sediment loads of Taiwan rivers have increased in recent years because of frequently recurring typhoons. In addition to the dry and wet seasons causing sever erosion and deposition of the riverbed, the long-term records from 1967 to 2009 of suspended sediment concentration and daily discharge observed by the Water Resource Agency in Taiwan Rivers were used in this study.
¡@¡@To understand the sediment deposition or erosion in the rivers, we need to find how the discharge and sediment load interact with each other under the natural and human influences. The hydrological data we used in this study were from Water Resources Agency¡¦s annual reports, including the Danshui River, the Lanyang River, the Zhuoshui River, the Beinan River, and the Gaoping River.
¡@¡@High turbidity happen when sediment concentration exceeds 40 g/L. Judging by this threshold, taking upstream stations of the Zhuoshui River for example, the Nei-Mao-Pu Station (1973-2009) reached this threshold 6 times, Bao-Shih Bridge Station (2004-2009) 19 times, and Yun-Feng Bridge Station (1995-2009) 19 times. But Yen-Ping Bridge Station (2004-2009), which is at the middle part of Zhuoshui River, has never reached the threshold, became the erosion rate and sedimentation rate are balanced here. Chi-Chou Bridge Station (2000-2009) at the downstream reached the threshold for 11 times too.
¡@¡@According to the river graded profile, in the Danshui River, obvious erosion occurred at the Liu-Kwei Bridge Station in 2000, the Po Bridge Station in 2001, and San-Hsia (2) Station in 2004 and 2007. In the Zhuoshui River, significant deposition took place at the Yun-Feng Bridge Station in 2006 and 2010. In the Gaoping River, deposition occurred at the A-Chyi-Ba Bridge Station in 2000, while erosion occurred at Liu-Kwei Station in 2001 and at the A-Chyi-Ba Bridge Station in 2007 and 2008.
¡@¡@Above results show that the major sediments are deposited upstream, forming a temporary sediment storage source region, such as at Li-Lin Bridge Station, Liu-Kwei Station, and Yun-Feng Bridge Station at the Gaoping River, all of which have reached the threshold when a typhoon comes. Investigating daily rainfall data from Taichung Weather Station in 2005, we find that besides typhoon influences, when the rainfall is exceeding 200 mm High turbidity events would occur in the Jhoushuei River.
¡@¡@According to our study, we find that most sediment deposits at the upper reaches, forming temporary sediment storages, so when a typhoon comes, we can see the sediment downstream is often mixed with the sediment coming from upstream storages. That is because the slope in the upper reaches is steeper, and heavy rain makes the temporary deposit easy to erode. On the contrary, the slope in the lower reaches is more gentle so it is easier for sediment to deposit, which is the reason why the stations at downstream often reach the threshold. When the extreme weather occurs, the temporary sediment storages along the entire river course become the source regions to release the sediment out to the sea.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0717112-012219
Date17 July 2012
CreatorsChueh, Sheng-An
ContributorsSu,C.C., James T. Liu, Kao,S.J., Dai, Z.J.
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0717112-012219
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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