ABSTRACT
The life cycle assessment of water infrastructures such as storage dams and reservoirs, are essential for computing the useful life of the storage structure. Further, dam reservoir supports the welfare of human civilization and assists in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which focus on water, sanitation, and clean energy. Sedimentation from reservoirs around the world is a critical problem as it results in the reduction of the storage capacity and useful life. The paucity of reservoir elevation-discharge data for run-of-the-river projects makes sediment load assessment a challenging task. This study aims to compute the loss of storage capacity since the time of commissioning (1994) of Chamera-1 hydro power project located in District Chamba of Himachal Pradesh, India. The Chamera-1 hydro power project is a run-of-the-river project on river Ravi having a reservoir capacity of 413 million cubic meters (MCM). The study uses remote sensing data for the assessment of sedimentation accumulation and subsequently reduction in the storage capacity of the reservoir. The System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses-GIS and Landsat-8 imageries have been employed to assess the periodical water surface area and volume difference in the reservoir. The outcomes of the study revealed that the 2.16 MCM/year (1.8 %) loss of storage capacity is ascribed to sedimentation on annual average basis. During the years 2015-17, the higher sedimentation rate from remotely sensed data can be justified by the accuracy of computed water spreading area and water pixels mixed with the land at the reservoir perimeter. However, satellite data with improved resolution overcomes such problems. The remote sensing studies also help assess the impact on the annual power generation capacity of the project along with storage capacity.
