SEDIMENT TRANSPORT ON THE DANUBE RIVER IN THE ROMANIAN BORDER AREA

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SEDIMENT TRANSPORT ON THE DANUBE RIVER IN THE ROMANIAN BORDER AREA – CHARACTERISTICS

Journal Title: Revue Roumaine de Géographie/Romanian Journal of Geography - Year 2017, Vol 61, Issue 1

Abstract

The beginnings of knowledge on the Danube River are lost in the historical past of Europe. The first information on the Danube is of a hydrographic nature, also referring to the elaboration of maps by the AustroHungarian Empire. A brief overview of the catchment area, with its orographic, geologic, climatic and hydrographic characteristics, reveals the conditions of water flow and sediment formation on the Danube. In 1838, the Austro-Hungarian authorities set up the first level gauge in the Romanian border sector (at Orşova) to measure water levels on the Danube. In the following years, water flow and sediment measurements began, further completed by the Romanian state after the 1877 War of Independence. Based on past measurements and on those gathered so far, enabled reconstituting the water level and sediment flow regime until 1840, presented in this paper. Special attention has been paid to coarse alluvial transport, dragged and in suspension. Analysing the interaction between water current and physical structure of the riverbed, yielded the empirical functions of hydro-morphological stability of the Danube riverbed and the empirical functions of dragged and suspended coarse sediment transport. The average specific discharge by sections of dragged coarse sediment and the average concentrations by sections of coarse sediment in suspension depend linearly on the average specific water discharge. Based on the empirical functions of coarse alluvial transport, which result from the processing of measurement data, led to determining the daily discharge of coarse sediment, dragged and in suspension, on the Romanian sector of the Danube between 1840 and 2012. Calculations yielded the multiannual average values and the maximum annual values of dragged and suspended coarse sediment discharge at the hydrometrical sections downstream of the Iron Gate. Here are the synthetic data: multiannual average values of dragged coarse sediment discharge vary between 14.6 kg/s at Gruia and 5.6 kg/s at Ceatal Ismail; maximum values of dragged coarse sediment discharge vary between 23.9 kg/s at Zimnicea and 47.9 kg/s at Grindu; multiannual average values of suspended coarse sediment discharge vary between 54.1 kg/s at Zimnicea and 130.1 kg/s at Ceatal Ismail; maximum values of coarse sediment discharge vary between 400 kg/s at Corabia and 2048 kg/s at Ceatal Ismail.

Authors and Affiliations

CONSTANTIN BONDAR, GABRIEL IORDACHE

Keywords

Danube transport sediment coarse silt flow

EP ID EP288959
DOI -
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