Impact of dam flushing operations on sediment dynamics and quality in the upper Rhône River, France

Abstract

Reviewer 1 Highlights corrected Sediment dynamic differed during flushing operations and flood events Line 15 corrected The Rhône River (France) has been used for energy production for decades and 21 dams have been built. Line 29-In general it is not advisable to start a sentence with an acronym, rather right it out in full corrected The SPM contamination was generally lower than during baseflow and flood regimes. Line 131 corrected More than 3 x 106 m3 of SPM were thus stored in the Verbois reservoir between 2003 and 2012 (Services industriels de Genève, 2014). Line 133 corrected [...] which transports ~0.7 x 106 m3 of SPM per year (approx. 1 to 3 tons dry weight) [...] Line 309-314-This section reads as introduction or as part of the discussion According to reviewer 4, this section was moved in the Materials and Method part.

Trace organic contaminants within solid matrices along an anthropized watercourse: Organo-mineral controls on their spatial distribution

“…The detection frequencies of TrOCs during the second campaign in sediments were therefore significantly lower than during the first campaign (Table S7), with median quantification frequencies of 30% during the first campaign and 10% during the second. The impact of the flood event on SPM contamination was different, as SPM samples were more organic during the second campaign, highlighting either the resuspension of fine particles or erosion on the watershed (Lepage et al, 2020), and the hydrological continuity was also more pronounced, as underlined by the particularly stable DOC values during the second campaign, except for the Rémarde samples (Table S1).…”

Reactivity of particulate element concentrations: apportionment assessment of suspended particulate matter sources in the Upper Rhône River, France

“…This sampling strategy allowed collecting samples for SPM concentrations ranging from 8.0 to 38 mg L −1 (AIN), 10 to 680 mg L −1 (ARV), 64 to 210 mg L −1 (BOU), 2.3 to 34 mg L −1 (FIE), and 8.0 to 269 mg L −1 (GUI). Moreover, 16 SPM samples were collected at the mixing station (Jons) during base flow periods, flood events, and dam flushing operations on the Verbois dam (June 2012, Lepage et al 2020). Indeed, in 2012, the hydroelectric dam at Verbois, located 12 km downstream of the confluence of the Arve and Rhône Rivers (Fig.…”

Assessing the Influence of Land-Use Changes on Water Quality Using Remote Sensing and GIS: A Study in Cirata Reservoir, Indonesia

“…In China, it is caused by hydrological morphometric and lack of environmental management (Jiang and Fu, 1998;Li et al, 2011). Meanwhile in Europe, especially in France, Spain, and Italy, the controlled sediment ushing triggers reservoir sedimentation which damages the freshwater ecosystem from contaminants (Muñoz et al, 2006;Espa et al, 2016;Lepage et al, 2020). Without proper environmental management, reservoir sedimentation is a common problem for dams in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States (Graf et al, 2010;Chen and Tsai, 2017;Nukazawa et al, 2020).…”