Citation
Jiyong Lee, Erik H. Schmidt, Antonia Chu, Carly H. Hansen, Debjani Singh, John Shelley, Mirko Musa and Soumendra Bhanja. 2026. Sedimentation in U.S. Reservoirs. HydroSource. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. DOI: 10.21951/US-Reservoir-Sedimentation/3364432
Overview
Sediment buildup in aging U.S. reservoirs is a growing concern for sustainable management of water storage, flood control and power generation. However, few than 1% of reservoirs in the U.S. have been surveyed to assess how much water storage they have lost to sediment buildup, making it difficult to fully understand the national impact of sedimentation. This storymap highlights severe reservoir sedimentation issues in the Tuttle Creek Reservoir in Kansas, where 50% of initial multi-purpose pool volume has been lost by 2024 due to sediment buildup. The storymap also showcases proactive mitigation efforts to combat this issue, including upstream streambank stabilization and Water Injection Dredging (WID) demonstration projects.
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