Sustainable Sediment Management of Alpine Reservoirs considering ecological and economical aspects
The Alpine Region is regarded as the most valuable source of clean drinking water in Europe and of great importance for hydro power use. Management of water as an extremely valuable resource is guaranteed by numerous reservoirs enabling a third essential task: flood protection. Sediments are transported in rivers originated from natural geomorphological processes in alpine regions accumulating material in reservoirs. Thus storage capacity is reduced interfering with the needs of water supply, flood protection and hydro power. However, the lack of transported material in downstream sections heavily affects ecological variety, river bed stability and groundwater. The project aims on a wise management of sediments on basis of experiences gained on national level to establish trans-national guidelines taking into account the EU Water Framework Directive and spatial development needs to preserve existing reservoirs and to avoid uncontrolled exploitation by constructing new storage capacity.