Numerical Modeling of Suspended Sediment Transport in Rivers (Case Study: Karkheh River)

Rivers as a main sources of supplying water for urban areas، agriculture and industry، are very important. This point reveals the necessity of the control، improvement and solving the problems of rivers، especially all problems relating to water quality. In this study، transport of the suspended sediment is numerically modeled. The Saint-Venant hydrodynamic equations and also advection-dispersion equation (ADE) are applied for modelling flow and suspended sediment transport. It is necessary to choose appropriate empirical and/or semi-empirical equation to accurately estimate the equilibrium suspended sediment discharge، as well as the appropriate equation describing longitudinal dispersion coefficient. In this research، 5 and 6 equations were applied in the ADE for estimating equilibrium suspended sediment discharge and longitudinal dispersion coefficient، respectively. 30 combinations of these equations were made and the final model was run for each of them separately. Comparison of the predicted suspended sediment concentrations and the corresponding measured values at the survey site، Abdelkhan Station، for the calibration and verification periods showed that the combination of the Van Rijn''s equilibrium suspended sediment equation and the Fischer''s longitudinal dispersion equation performed very well. The maximum percentages of errors in estimation of suspended sediment concentrations were 19. 56% and 26. 3% for the calibration and verification periods، respectively.