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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Oxford, Mississippi » National Sedimentation Laboratory » Water Quality and Ecology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #65107

Title: HYDRAULIC AND HYDROLOGIC STABILITY

Author
item Shields Jr, Fletcher

Submitted to: River Channel Restoration
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/15/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Ecological resources and amenities associated with many stream corridors have been degraded or destroyed by channelization and lack of conservation practices on the watershed. Available technology for designing restored stream corridors is scattered through scientific and engineering literature. This literature was reviewed and relevant findings were presented in condensed form. The resultant step-by step process can be used by designers of stream restoration projects to produce channels that are dynamically stable and that provide high-quality habitats. Techniques for checking channel stability are also presented, and channel stabilization structures are described.

Technical Abstract: Stream restoration projects are growing in popularity, but guidance for designers is widely scattered in the literature, and tends to be somewhat regionalized. Recent and historical developments in hydraulics and fluvial geomorphology were reviewed and presented in a step-by-step procedure to aid channel designers in producing channels with natural characteristics that are dynamically stable. Empirical (e.g., hydraulic geometry formulas and allowable stress criteria) and analytical techniques (e.g., stable channel design methods based on extremal hypotheses) for determining channel dimensions (average width, depth, slope, and meander geometry) and checking channel stability are presented and evaluated. Numerous examples are cited.