ASSESSMENT OF ANNUAL FLUVIAL SEDIMENTS LOAD WITHIN GURARA DAMRESERVOIR, NIGERIA.

Abstract

Sediment inflow and deposition depletes much required storage capacity, decreases the useful life and alter the beneficial uses of dam reservoirs. This hydrologic research was carried out to quantify the total annual fluvial sediment transported and deposited into the Gurara dam reservoir in order to improve on the effective management of the Gurara Reservoir. Sediment sampling method and Colby unmeasured sediment empirical relationship approach were used. Total annual sediment inflow of 25,725,000kg/year was estimated. The 25,725,000kg/year is broken down into 21,522,000 kg/year of measured sediment load and 4,203,000kg/year of unmeasured sediment load. Gurara River is the major source of sediment into Gurara reservoir with the highest annual sediment load of 8,281,000 kg/year and highest inflow of 20,963,080m3year. Integrated watershed management, good environmental practices in agriculture etc. are the engineering measures recommended as actions to be taken to forestall sedimentation in the Gurara reservoir.