Navigable Waterways Research Articles

The use of line transects for an accurate description of river bank vegetation

The last decades, considerable efforts have been made to increase the habitat diversity of river banks along navigable waterways. In particular the construction of nature friendly bank protections aimed to preserve or restore ecological gradients, enhancing habitat diversity. To evaluate the ecological gain obtained so far, monitoring studies are performed. The use of the quadrat method is widespread in the vegetation monitoring of river banks. However, when monitoring narrow river banks, this method has serious restrictions. A possible alternative could be the use of a line transect method. Both methods were compared by calculating weighted averages of Ellenberg indicator values of all species present in a sample area, to determine the most appropriate method. We observed that the Ellenberg indicator value for moisture was the most appropriate variable to describe changes perpendicular to the waterline. When comparing both methods through time, they seemed to produce similar results in the case of species poor vegetation types such as reedbeds or some grassland types. Nevertheless the line transect method produced a much better description of the spatial gradient complexity. The use of the most efficient monitoring method is determinant to accurately evaluate the present gradients and the gradients after an intervention has taken place.

Estimation of suspended sediment concentration in the Saint John River using rating curves and a machine learning approach

ABSTRACTSedimentation in navigable waterways and harbours is of concern for many water and port managers. One potential source of variability in sedimentation is the annual sediment load of the river that empties in the harbour. The main objective of this study was to use some of the regularly monitored hydro-meteorological variables to compare estimates of hourly suspended sediment concentration in the Saint John River using a sediment rating curve and a model tree (M5ʹ) with different combinations of predictors. Estimated suspended sediment concentrations were multiplied by measured flows to estimate suspended sediment loads. Best results were obtained using M5ʹ with four predictors, returning an R2 of 0.72 on calibration data and an R2 of 0.46 on validation data. Total load was underestimated by 1.41% for the calibration period and overestimated by 2.38% for the validation period. Overall, the model tree approach is suggested for its relative ease of implementation and constant performance.EDITOR M.C. Acreman; ASSOCIATE EDITOR B. Touaibia

Economic impact analysis of inland waterway disruption response

ABSTRACTNavigable inland waterways connect inland ports with the global supply chain by providing a low-cost, reliable, and environmentally friendly freight transportation mode. In this article, we present the results from a simulation-based approach that estimates the potential economic impacts of inland waterway disruption response. Predicting economic impacts of inland waterway disruption response enables system stakeholders to increase their preparedness and potentially reduce economic losses. Our approach is implemented on an illustrative case study of the McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. The approach is generalizable to navigable inland waterways throughout the United States to support economic resilience of these systems.

Colonial Property, Private Dams, and Climate Change in Virginia

Dams have been a significant part of flood prevention and management systems in the United States, dating back to the systematic efforts of the Tennessee Valley Authority and, less systemically, long before that. Dealing with flood management in Virginia presents unique challenges because of a colonial legacy that allows most dams in Virginia to be privately owned. Through a mechanism called King’s Grants, some Virginia landowners hold title not simply to property surrounding a navigable waterway, but also to the soil beneath the river and to dams crossing the river. Such ownership of the soil of large, navigable waterways is unique to this particular type of land grant as it has been construed by the Virginia Supreme Court. Dam management is a significant issue for public safety for two reasons. First, roughly 20% of Virginia’s dams fall within the high hazard category, which means that significant loss of life and property would result from a breach. With climate change indicating a greater likelihood of high magnitude storms, dam failures are all the more anticipated. Private ownership causes unique challenges in this regard because expenses of dam renovations tend to far exceed the means of private landowners who hold title to roughly three-­fifths of the dams in the state. Second, flood management requires coordinated and comprehensive action, which is a far greater logistical challenge when dams are managed and operated by more than a thousand individual landowners within the state. Despite those challenges, this article argues that such a comprehensive approach is the only option in the face of significant storm risks and sea level rise.

A Global Approach For Investigating Resilience In Inland Navigation Network Dealing With Climate Change Context

At the European scale, inland navigation waterway transport is considered as a competitive and environment friendly alternative to road and rail transport. This transport mode is promoting in north of France thanks to the building of the Canal Seine-Nord. The number of boats and the navigation scheduling will increase significantly. A big raise of the required water volume is waited. Overcoming this future navigation demand will be particularly challenging in a climate change context. Hence, a crucial step consists in investigating the resilience of the inland navigation networks considering the future navigation demand and the climate change impacts. The main objective of this paper is to present the tools dedicated to the resilience determination that is required to design adaptive management strategies of these networks. An integrated model is proposed to model the network and to identify and quantify water supplies and water intakes. Then, a generalized flow-based network is used to model the water volume dispatching. The water dispatching has to be optimized according to the network resilience against the increase of navigation demand, and against the decrease of available water resource particularly during drought periods. Due to the complex structure of the networks, uncertainties that are linked to the daily number of boat and to the available water resource, an interesting approach will consist in defining a distributed problem. Local virtual agents will be designed to manage each waterway section, and a global coordination process will guarantee the efficient management of the network. The tools are designed and tested considering the inland navigation network in north of France.

Synthetic events for flood risk calculation by using a nested Copula structure

Risk analysis requires considering the entire frequency domain of flood consequences. Synthetic events were generated for the entire river system of the Scheldt estuary. This estuary contains multiple navigable waterways and is situated in Belgium and the Netherlands. Extreme water levels are influenced by rainfall-runoff discharges, tiding, storm surges, and wind speed and direction. For the generation of hydraulic boundary conditions for flood risk assessment, these influences and their mutual dependencies and correlations are taken into account by means of a nested extreme value copula structure. The variation in time is taken into account by standardized profiles, computed by normalizing all recorded extreme events and fitting a probability distribution to the variation of the standardized events, yielding 5 profile classes through another stratification. Eventually this resulted in a total of 1920 sets of synthetic events. All events were run through the hydrodynamic model of the river system. The frequency distribution of the resulting water levels are calculated by accumulation of the corresponding probabilities of occurrence of the synthetic events at each location. The methodology has the advantage that it determines a statistical distribution of consequences, rather than assigning frequencies to hydrodynamic boundary conditions.

Dynamic Ship Domain Models for Capacity Analysis of Restricted Water Channels

Developing adequate ship domain models may significantly benefit vessel navigation safety. In essence, navigation safety is collectively affected by the navigable waterway condition, the size and shape of the ship, and operators' skills. The existing ship domains mainly use constant values for the model input parameters, making them incapable of handling site-specific conditions. This study proposes dynamic ship domain models that take into consideration navigable waterway conditions, ship behaviours, ship types and sizes, and operators' skills in a holistic manner. Specifically, the conditions of restricted waterways are classified into navigating along the channel, crossing the channel, joining another flow and turning. The ship types considered include ships that transport non-hazardous goods and Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) ships that are in need of additional security zones. A computational experiment is conducted for model application using data on water channel design and ship traffic volumes related to navigating along the channel, joining another flow and turning. Comparisons of results obtained between the proposed dynamic models with real ship traffic counts reveal that the proposed models could achieve a higher level of accuracy in estimating the capacity of restricted water channels. It therefore could potentially deliver safety enhancements of waterway transportation.

Strain rate sensitive steel constitutive models for finite element analysis of vessel-structure impacts

Civil infrastructure systems such as bridge piers, navigational guide walls, and protection structures that are located near navigable waterways are inherently at risk for being impacted by cargo vessels such as barges and ships. To safely design such systems to possess adequate vessel impact resistance, structural loads associated with potential vessel-structure collision conditions must be quantified in a conservative manner. While high-resolution finite element impact simulations may be employed to compute such loads, care must be exercised in defining the material characteristics of the vessel if conservative structural design loads are to be obtained. Importantly, constitutive relationships assigned to steel components in the vessel model must be capable of accounting for strain rate sensitivities and large-scale plastic deformations.In the present study, strain rate sensitive constitutive models were developed for two types of steel commonly utilized in marine construction in the United States—ASTM A36 and ASTM A1011. Tension tests were conducted over a wide range of strain rates (7.00 × 10−5 s−1 – 250 s−1) spanning from quasi-static to intermediate and high rates that are typically associated with vessel-structure impact events. A novel testing apparatus—employing an impact pendulum as an energy supply mechanism—was designed for this study to conduct intermediate to high-rate material testing. Features of the apparatus, discussed in this paper, overcome key problems encountered in other studies that have employed impact loading for tensile material testing. From the testing program, representative stress–strain relations and Cowper–Symonds strain rate sensitivity parameters were developed for the materials tested. Rate sensitivities of the two steel grades tested were found to be very similar to each other. Additionally, rate sensitivities from the present study agreed well with ultimate stress data measured in past studies of mild steel, but were found to be less rate-sensitive than yield stress data measured in past studies.

Structural Behavior of Barges in High-Energy Collisions against Bridge Piers

The collision of barges against bridge piers is an extreme loading condition that usually governs the design of bridges that span navigable waterways. The magnitude and time variation of impact forces depend on several aspects, such as mass and speed of the barges, stiffness of the impacted structure, and structural behavior of the barge. The latter has a considerable influence, not only because it defines the maximum possible impact force but also because it defines the energy absorption capacity of the barge. The structural behavior of barges has been studied using scale models and numerical methods. However, the total deformation reached in these studies was limited to the size of the barge bow. Hence, there is uncertainty in the behavior for high-energy collisions, where deformations may well exceed this deformation range. This paper studies the structural behavior of barges using detailed nonlinear finite-element (FE) models. Load–deformation relationships are established on the basis of the model results for different shapes and sizes of impacted structures. These relationships can be applied in simplified dynamic analyses for design, considering the large deformations expected for high-energy impact scenarios. Simplified analysis methods for symmetrical and oblique flotilla impacts are presented and validated against full FE models.

Nautical Depth for U.S. Navigable Waterways: A Review

AbstractThe present state of navigation engineering knowledge concerning nautical depth in ports and waterways with fluid mud is summarized to examine the potential for successful application of the nautical depth concept in U.S. navigable waterways. Nautical depth defines a safe and effective channel bottom criterion in areas where fluid mud confounds conventional acoustic (echo sounder) surveying methods. Fluid mud is a high-concentration suspension that typically behaves as a non-Newtonian fluid. It occurs in ports and channels on all U.S. coastlines and accounts for a significant portion of the United States’ $1 billion dredging expense. Nautical depth has been adopted in multiple ports on three continents. Where nautical depth application is appropriate, it often reduces dredging frequency and dredged material volume and can provide water quality benefits. Multiple experiments and field experience have shown that vessels can safely transit areas with fluid mud below the keel. The United States’ adopt...

Distribution of new fish species along the navigable waterways in the water bodies of Vologda oblast

The paper summarizes the data on distribution of new fish species along the main waterways in the water bodies of Vologda oblast. The role of the Volga-Baltic waterway and North Dvina water system for invasion of fish in the basins of the Caspian, White, and Baltic seas is assessed. The data on the spreading of fish along the waterways within the catchment areas of the three seas, as well as through the borders between these areas, are analyzed.

A Tale of Two Cities: Akimbo Body Theatrics in Bristol, England, and Spanish Town, Jamaica

Dale Cockrell’s seminal blackface study Demons of Disorder begins with workingclass street dance, an 1842 account from the flash paper the Libertine describing a gladiatorial contest between two prostitutes, Nance holmes and suse bryant, on boston’s long Wharf.1 Cockrell unpacks this event as iconic of antebellum street culture’s challenge to existing power, class, and economics. Public music and noise, its close cousin, have often exhibited contested, gendered, or sexualized associations, particularly when in the hands of marginalized social groups. We may think of the charivari of medieval weddings and “shivaree” of the American south, the masked and costumed noise of Carnivale, the gongs and firecrackers of China’s Taiping rebellion, even the vuvuzelas of twentyfirstcentury sporting events; in each case, “noise” becomes a tool for simultaneously creating subaltern group cohesion and contesting economic or political regulation. between the revolution and the Civil War, the louisiana Purchase (1803) nearly doubled the nation’s territory; the development of navigable waterways, culminating with the opening of the erie Canal in 1826, accelerated economic activity and westward expansion; urbanization drove economic rifts between agrarian, slaveholding south and industrializing, freemarket North (exemplified by the missouri

Response-Spectrum Analysis for Barge Impacts on Bridge Structures

AbstractBridge structures that span navigable waterways are inherently at risk for barge collision incidents and therefore must be designed for impact loading. Current U.S. barge impact analysis procedures consist primarily of static load analysis methods that do not explicitly account for dynamic effects in barge–bridge collisions, and thus are not ideally suited to designing bridge structures to resist barge impacts. Therefore, the development of dynamic-analysis methods for estimating the responses of bridge structures to barge collisions is warranted. Dynamic-analysis procedures that use numerical time-integration techniques are capable of capturing pertinent dynamic effects but often yield voluminous amounts of time-varying results that must be post processed for use in design. In contrast, response-spectrum analysis (RSA) procedures are capable of directly producing maximum response parameters that are most pertinent to structural design. In this paper, an RSA procedure is proposed for use in barge ...

English

Dam structures that span navigable waterways are inherently at a risk for seismic vibrations and as such they must be designed to resist these vibrations. However, these earthquake vibrations are fundamentally dynamic in nature and a static analysis procedure may not be adequate in designing hydraulic structures like Dam. Therefore, dynamic analysis methods forestimating the response of a concrete gravity dam plays an extraordinary role.This paper presents the dynamic non-linear time history analysis of a concrete gravity dam by using CSI SAP 2000. A concrete gravity dam model is prepared in SAP 2000 to perform the time history analysis. Concrete gravity dam is a massive structure which retains a very large amount of water on its upstream side and it is very crucial for a dam to survive against vibrations of earthquake. So it is a matter of study to check the behaviour of a dam during and after the application of the loading. Time history is basically a method of seismic analysis for the simulation of an earthquake motion. It is an ultimate tool to study the dynamic response of a structure. This paper gives a step by step procedure to perform the non-linear time history analysis by using time-acceleration data as input function and then performance of the gravity dam is evaluated with various mode shapes and time-acceleration results

Public Trust Doctrine Implications of Electricity Production

The public trust doctrine is a powerful legal tool in property law that requires the sovereign, as a trustee, to protect and manage natural resources. Historically, the public trust doctrine has been used in relationship to navigable waterways and wildlife management. Despite electricity production’s impact on those two areas and the comparatively smaller impacts of renewable energy, electricity production has garnered very little public trust doctrine attention. This Article examines how electricity production implicates the public trust doctrine, primarily through the lens of four states—California, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and New Jersey—and how it would potentially apply to each state’s electricity planning and policies. As illustrated in the four case studies, the public trust doctrine can serve the following four purposes: (1) as a tool for citizens to force states to act on renewable electricity development; (2) as a legal defense for states to validate actions encouraging renewable electricity development; (3) as a means for courts to more closely scrutinize electricity decisions made by the state; and (4) as an opportunity for state agencies to supplement and guide imperfect statutes. Together, these four purposes of the public trust can ensure reasonable and timely development of renewable electricity as well as sufficient protection of trust resources.

Life cycle assessment for dredged sediment placement strategies

Dredging to maintain navigable waterways is important for supporting trade and economic sustainability. Dredged sediments are removed from the waterways and then must be managed in a way that meets regulatory standards and properly balances management costs and risks. Selection of a best management alternative often results in stakeholder conflict regarding tradeoffs between local environmental impacts associated with less expensive alternatives (e.g., open water placement), more expensive measures that require sediment disposal in constructed facilities far away (e.g., landfills), or beneficial uses that may be perceived as risky (e.g., beach nourishment or island creation). Current sediment-placement decisions often focus on local and immediate environmental effects from the sediment itself, ignoring a variety of distributed and long-term effects from transportation and placement activities. These extended effects have implications for climate change, resource consumption, and environmental and human health, which may be meaningful topics for many stakeholders not currently considered. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides a systematic and quantitative method for accounting for this wider range of impacts and benefits across all sediment management project stages and time horizons. This paper applies a cradle-to-use LCA to dredged-sediment placement through a comparative analysis of potential upland, open water, and containment-island placement alternatives in the Long Island Sound region of NY/CT. Results suggest that, in cases dealing with uncontaminated sediments, upland placement may be the most environmentally burdensome alternative, per ton-kilometer of placed material, due to the emissions associated with diesel fuel combustion and electricity production and consumption required for the extra handling and transportation. These results can be traded-off with the ecosystem impacts of the sediments themselves in a decision-making framework.

Long-term morphological response to dredging including cut-across-shoal in a tidal channel-shoal system

This study examines long-term channel-shoal stability in the Tieshan Bay, which is located on the southwest coast of China. A large-scale channel-shoal system has historically existed in the outer Tieshan Bay. A navigation waterway is initiated by cutting and dredging a mid-channel shoal to supply coal to a power plant on the middle coast of the Tieshan Bay. Dredging of the access channel to the Tieshan Port was conducted in two stages followed by land reclamation. It is thus of practical meaning to explore how the channel-shoal system will evolve in long term afterwards. This study uses the process-based finite-volume coastal ocean model (FVCOM) to investigate long-term (centennial) morphological evolution of the channel-shoal system. After well calibration of hydrodynamics and sediment transport, the model forecasts morphodynamic evolution in hundred years. The simulations show that continuous erosion in tidal channels and accretion over shoals and intertidal flats occur. However, the cutting and access channels will be subjected to long-term siltation. A secondary channel indicating the reorientation of the access channel will emerge, and a localized channel-ridge system at the junction of the major channels will be formed. The overall erosion/accretion pattern demonstrates the combined effect of bottom friction and advective sediment transport processes to be responsible for the channel-shoal formation. Dredging of the tidal channels will stimulate the stability of the channel-shoal pattern. It suggests that the navigation waterway should be set up following the long-term morphological evolution of the channel-shoal system at a design stage and maintenance dredging volume might thus be minimized.

Charlemagne's summit canal: an early medieval hydro-engineering project for passing the Central European Watershed.

The Central European Watershed divides the Rhine-Main catchment and the Danube catchment. In the Early Medieval period, when ships were important means of transportation, Charlemagne decided to link both catchments by the construction of a canal connecting the Schwabian Rezat and the Altmühl rivers. The artificial waterway would provide a continuous inland navigation route from the North Sea to the Black Sea. The shortcut is known as Fossa Carolina and represents one of the most important Early Medieval engineering achievements in Europe. Despite the important geostrategic relevance of the construction it is not clarified whether the canal was actually used as a navigation waterway. We present new geophysical data and in situ findings from the trench fills that prove for the first time a total length of the constructed Carolingian canal of at least 2300 metres. We have evidence for a conceptual width of the artificial water course between 5 and 6 metres and a water depth of at least 60 to 80 cm. This allows a crossing way passage of Carolingian cargo scows with a payload of several tons. There is strong evidence for clayey to silty layers in the trench fills which reveal suspension load limited stillwater deposition and, therefore, the evidence of former Carolingian and post-Carolingian ponds. These findings are strongly supported by numerous sapropel layers within the trench fills. Our results presented in this study indicate an extraordinarily advanced construction level of the known course of the canal. Here, the excavated levels of Carolingian trench bottoms were generally sufficient for the efficient construction of stepped ponds and prove a final concept for a summit canal. We have evidence for the artificial Carolingian dislocation of the watershed and assume a sophisticated Early Medieval hydrological engineering concept for supplying the summit of the canal with adequate water.

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Living Shoreline in a Confined, Non‐Tidal Waterway Subject to Heavy Shipping Traffic

AbstractRiver bank erosion is a point of concern along navigable waterways because it increases the likelihood of bank failure. In non‐tidal and restricted fetch waterways, bank failure is mainly the result of extreme weather events and ship wave action. To counteract progressive bank erosion, nature‐friendly bank protection (a ‘living’ shoreline) has been installed in a stretch of the Lys (Belgium). It consists of off‐bank timber piling, which separates the fairway from the shallow water riverine environment, and a reed belt, planted at the base of the vertical cut bank. To evaluate its effectiveness, short‐term and long‐term field studies were carried out. The long‐term topographic survey did not reveal a clear difference in bank erosion rates between the surveyed nature‐friendly protected and naturally eroding embayments. Horizontal bank retreat could however not be linked directly to occasional flooding events and frequent ship wave action, although the latter's influence was inferred qualitatively. Based on velocity and turbidity measurements, the short‐term study pointed out the importance of an individual ship's wave action on bed and bank erosion behind the off‐bank timber piling. All ships were able to resuspend sandy bed sediments; yet, only a significant higher sediment volume was transported because of shipping traffic of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) classes IV and Va. If ship wave energy exceeded 45 Jm−2, silty bank particles were dislodged from the river bank. Although validation of the results by longer term assessments may complete the physical insight in river bank erosion, the study indicated that this particular bank protecting configuration does not provide sufficient protection against ship wave action and does not adequately prevent further bank erosion. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Unintended Consequences: Lucas, the Public Trust Doctrine, and the Erosion of Private Property Rights Under the Takings Clause

This Note considers the relationship between the public trust doctrine and private property rights under the Takings Clause. Traditionally, the public trust doctrine vests authority in state governments to protect navigable waterways and related lands. But in recent years, state governments and state courts have begun to use the doctrine to achieve broader environmental ends. While increased environmental protection at the state level serves vital public interests, it is not an unambiguous good. Under current takings analysis, the public trust doctrine constitutes one of several affirmative defenses to just compensation liability; where state governments invoke the public trust doctrine, they are not required to pay just compensation to property owners, even for complete takings. The expanded public trust doctrine can therefore frustrate constitutionally rooted private property rights. This Note proffers some recommendations to resolve the tension between states' interest in environmental protection and private property owners' constitutional guarantee of just compensation. Under a codification and declaration regime, states can continue to expand their public trust doctrines while at the same time providing property owners more meaningful protections. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Table Normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}