Numerical Simulation of Bed Material Transport in the Lower Mississippi River

The flood protection levees and other man-made changes along the Mississippi River have deprived the Louisiana coast of a large amount of sediment which is now being lost to the Gulf of Mexico. Numerical modeling of hydrodynamics and sediment transport was undertaken to assess the potential impacts...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of coastal research 2009-01, Vol.SI (56), p.1449-1453
Main Authors: Pereire, J. F., McCorquodale, J.A., Meselhe, E.A., Georgiou, I.Y., Allison, M.A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boundary conditions
Calibration
Coastal
Computational fluid dynamics
Estuarine & Wetland Restoration
Flood protection
Fluid flow
Fluvial transport
Hydraulics
Hydrodynamics
Hydrological modeling
Levees
Levees & battures
Load
Material transport processes
Mathematical models
Modeling
Rivers
Salinity
Sand
Sediment transport
Sediments
Simulation
Studies
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Summary:The flood protection levees and other man-made changes along the Mississippi River have deprived the Louisiana coast of a large amount of sediment which is now being lost to the Gulf of Mexico. Numerical modeling of hydrodynamics and sediment transport was undertaken to assess the potential impacts of options to re-connect the River to the coastal wetlands as part of coastal restoration efforts. In this study, HEC-RAS 4.0, a 1-D mobile-bed numerical model was calibrated and applied to a reach of the lower Mississippi River. The calibration utilized long term historic sediment data as well as recent observations. The hydraulics and sediment modules were calibrated for the reach between Tarbert Landing (RM 306, km 492) and Venice (RM 11, km 17). During calibration, the Engelund-Hansen formula gave the best results compared to observations, while during validation, the model reproduced observed hydrodynamics, bed material loads and erosion/deposition patterns fairly well. The predicted sand loads at Belle Chasse (RM 76, km 122) were compared with available data and the agreement, expressed as a ratio of predicted to observed loads, was within the acceptable range of 0.5 to 2.
ISSN:0749-0208
1551-5036