Development of a water surface area-storage capacity relationship for Namodope Reservoir, Uganda

Abstract

The conventional methods of assessing reservoir sedimentation are usually time-consuming, laborious, weather dependent and hence expensive. Geospatial technology has provided a tool to carry out reservoir capacity survey rapidly, frequently and economically. The accuracy of this geospatial technology is enhanced when used with empirical relationship between the reservoirs’ parameters (volume and area). However, the use of existing empirical relationship is limited to the region for which they were developed. Hence this study developed a water surface area-storage capacity relationship for Namadope reservoir for Uganda region. This empirical equation, in the form of ‘Capacity = 0.0000173* Area^2.1799’, was developed based on both field work and remote sensing. The validation process adopted in the study indicate accuracies of 86.7% and 73.3% for the water surface areas and reservoir capacity respectively. Using this validated technique the study inferred that the Namadope reservoir has lost a capacity of 65,058 m3 in a period of 18 years.

KEYWORDS:

• Reservoir sedimentation level
• remote sensing
• Reservoir capacity
• Region-based equation

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Kampala International University [SEED Grant – KIU-G1578].

Notes on contributors

Lawal Abdul Qayoom Tunji

Dr. Eng. Lawal Abdul Qayoom Tunji has a PhD. in Civil Engineering with a specialization in Water Resources Engineering. He has close to 10 years of teaching and research experience in the area of Water Resources Engineering. He is a research engineer that sought to solve problems related to the environment, water and agriculture. He is proficient in the use of hydraulic modelling tools such as SWAN, MOHID and MOHID-GIS, ANSYS, STAR CCM+, HEC - HMS, HEC-RAS, EPANET, EPA SWMM. He is also proficient with the application of Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing in solving water resources engineering problem. He has authored quite a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals in his area of specialization.

Jotham Ivan Sempewo

Dr. Eng. Jotham Ivan Sempewo is a Lecturer in the department of civil and environmental engineering, College of Engineering, Design Art and Technology of Makerere University, Kampala. He is involved in postgraduate training, capacity development, research and consultancy in the areas of Project management, Water distribution systems and Water Resources modeling and Management, Urban Infrastructure and hydrology, Irrigation systems, Hydropower & Dams and Asset Management.

Wilberforce Mbatya

Eng. Wilberforce Mbatya is a Civil engineer by training, he has masters in Water and Environmental Engineering from Kampala international University. He has been working in the Water sector for over 15 years and is a registered member of Rural Water and Sanitation Network (RWSN).