Simulating bed evolution following the Barlin Dam (Taiwan, China) failure with implications for sediment dynamics modeling of dam removal

Abstract

The failure of the Barlin Dam in Taiwan, China offers an important case study for evaluating concepts in modeling the rapid erosion and channel recovery following intentional and unplanned dam removals. We present a modeling effort that applied a 1D and quasi-2D uncoupled hydraulics and sediment model (NETSTARS) to evaluate how discretization and parameterization influence thefitofbed elevationpredictions to observations following dam failure. Our analysis evaluated the model sensitivity to sediment transport function, active layer thickness, and number of stream tubes used to define the cross-section. Results indicate that a) the model is more sensitive to active layer thickness and sediment transport function than to the number of stream tubes, b) development of dam removal models are likely to benefit from varying the active layer thickness in time, and c) increased lateral discretization does not appear to improve model fit in the steep and rapidly changing river environment at our site. We conclude with discussion on differences between, identifying the need for, and general use of 1D, quasi-2D, and fully 2D models in dam removal and failure analysis.