An Integrated Approach to Hydrographic Surveying of Large Reservoirs—Application to Tarbela Reservoir in Pakistan

Sarfraz Munir,Arsalan Babrus,Muhammad Armaghan

doi:10.4236/ojmh.2014.44015

Abstract

Hydrographic surveying in reservoirs is a key activity in order to collect data for a variety of purposes like estimation of storage capacity, rate and pattern of sediment deposition, movement of underwater sediment delta and reservoir routing, etc. These parameters play a pivotal role in any planning, management and operation activity of the reservoirs. Traditional approaches to perform hydrographic surveying in Indus Basin are time consuming, laborious, comparatively inaccurate and costly. As water resources are under immense pressure due to a variety of factors, such inefficient methods are not acceptable for efficient water management. In this study, an integrated approach for hydrographic surveying is introduced and evaluated in terms of its efficiency in comparison with the traditional methods of hydrographic surveying. The approach develops an integrated environment of hydrographic surveying comprising human, hardware and software. The process of surveying starts from in-house planning using specialized geo-spatial softwares. Then, on site a combination of computer hardware, echosounder, differential global positioning system (DGPS), survey vessel and survey crew is made. Post-processing is performed after conducting a survey in order to improve quality of data by filtering errors and producing the end product like reservoir underwater terrain, development of reservoir stage-area and stage-storage relationships, etc. The study was applied to Tarbela Reservoir, Pakistan.

Highlights

Data collected through hydrographic surveying play a pivotal role in decision making for short term and long term planning, operation and management of the reservoir [1]
In water resources engineering and management projects in Indus Basin the traditional methods of hydrographic surveying are adopted, these methods served the purpose to a large extent in the past
In case of Tarbela Reservoir, the traditional method of hydrographic surveying consists of a large set of heavy and complicated equipment

Summary

Introduction

Data collected through hydrographic surveying play a pivotal role in decision making for short term and long term planning, operation and management of the reservoir [1]. In water resources engineering and management projects in Indus Basin the traditional methods of hydrographic surveying are adopted, these methods served the purpose to a large extent in the past. Water resources are under immense pressure due to various factors and need a variety of information in order to take timely and informed decisions for efficient management of water. The traditional methods do not have the capacity to deal with such data in an efficient way. In case of Tarbela Reservoir, the traditional method of hydrographic surveying consists of a large set of heavy and complicated equipment. A large crew is required onboard in order to mount and operate the equipment

Methods

Results

Conclusion