Entropy for determining the concentration of sediment in suspension in reservoir

ABSTRACT The sediment found in the cross section of a river or a reservoir is the result of interactions that occur in a watershed, whether from natural or anthropogenic factors. There are still changes in the riverbed conditions depending on the type of sediment, flow velocity, changes in slope and human interventions such as hydraulic works. Although the amount of sediment in the river is the result of processes that occur within the basin, the estimation methods of sediment based on these characteristics, that is, deterministic methods, vary widely due to the large number of interfering variables. This paper deals with the application of the entropy theory, a non-deterministic method to estimate the profile of sediment concentration upstream, downstream and within a reservoir. A relationship between two parameters in order to facilitate the estimation was proposed. It can be observed that it is possible to apply entropy theory to simulate the sediment concentration profile in reservoirs. The use of the relationship between parameters facilitates calculations, reduces the number of modeled parameters and consequently the computational effort and better represents the variation of sediment concentration along the profile.