Development of methodology for the design of Sediment Bypass Tunnels (SBTs) in reservoirs

The present project aims towards the development of a procedure for the calculation of, first, the sedimentation at the reservoir of a dam and, second, the annual cost of damages that a sediment bypass tunnel at such a reservoir would incur during its operation under such a rate of sedimentation. The procedure is purposefully made to be based on simplistic input data so that it is usable even when extensive field surveys at a reservoir site have not, or cannot, be conducted. Then, the end results based on that data can inform us on the following: 1) whether the sedimentation rate at the reservoir is high enough to justify the construction of a sediment bypass tunnel and 2) whether a sediment bypass tunnel is a solution financially feasible in regards to its annual maintenance costs. This project aims to showcase the aforementioned procedure based on the real-life example of the Ladonas reservoir in Greece. That said, the process has been made “open” enough to accommodate for the input data of any reservoir, if used correctly.