Proceedings of the 19th IAHR-APD Congress 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam

ISBN 978604821338-1

A QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF wAKATSU PORT TRAINING LEVEE BY COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF

FLOW AND SEDIMENT TRANSPORT IN LOWER REACH OF CHIKUGO RIVER, JAPAN

K. OHGUSHI (1), Y. KOGA (2) & T. JANSEN (3)

(1)
Professor, Saga University, Saga, Japan, ohgushik@cc.saga-u.ac.jp
(2)
Graduate Student, Saga University, Saga, Japan, 14577009@edu.cc.saga-u.ac.jp
(3)
Graduate Student, Saga University, Saga, Japan, 12644006@edu.cc.saga-u.ac.jp

ABSTRACT
This study quantitatively evaluates the functions of Wakatsu Port training levee in the lower reach of Chikugo River,
Japan by using numerical simulations of flow and sediment transport in this river. As a result of quasi 3D flow
simulation, the existence of the training levee causes to accelerate the flow of left bank side of the river to keep the
steamship route deep. The sediment transport simulation gives the results that a deposition rate of the left bank side of
the river becomes small due to the existence of the training levee although the river bed tends to increase regardless of
the training levee's existence.

Keywords: training levee, sediment transport, suspended load,

quasi 3D numerical simulation
1. INTRODUCTION
The lower reach of Chikugo River, Japan is influenced
from the Ariake Sea which has the most tidal change in
Japan. During the flood tide, the adverse flow carries a
large amount of sediments from the sea. The lower part
of this river divides to Chikugo River and Hayatsue River
as shown in Figure 1. Hayatsue River was an original
river of Chikugo River. It is known that the most of the
sediment transported from the Ariake Sea by the adverse
flow in Hayatsue River is effluent to the Ariake Sea
through Chikugo River. Therefore, the sediment tends to
deposit at the lower reach of Chikugo River.
Wakatsu Port training levee located along the lower reach
of Chikugo River was built in 1890 to prevent the
deposition of the sediment and keep the ship route.
Nowadays, after 120 years and more from its
construction, this levee attains the initial aim. The
historical value of the training levee was approved and it
was awarded as Recommended Civil Heritage by the
committee of JSCE in 2008. Moreover, symposia on Figure 1. Location of Wakatsu Port training levee in Chikugo
Wakatsu Port training levee were held and many persons River, Japan.
have started to research it, so that the value of this open in Edo era as a port of shipping of rice, wheat and
training levee has been recognized once again. timber coming from Hita, Ohita and this port was a base
of supplies transportation in Chikugo River. However, as
However, there are few studies and reports on the the ship route was often blocked due to ease of sediment
functional evaluation of Wakatsu Port training levee. deposition by the tide of the Ariake Sea, Wakatsu Port
Details of design theory and construction procedure are training levee was built in 1890 in order to prevent the
almost unknown. In this study, unsteady numerical sediment deposition and keep the ship route. Wakatsu
simulations on the river flow and sediment transport are Port training levee is a masonry training levee made
implemented to evaluate this training levee. along the center line of the river channel and is 6km long
from the river mouth to upstream as shown in Figure 2. It
2. WAKASTU PORT AND TRAINING LEVEE has been transmitted that this training levee is designed
by Johannis de Rijke, who is Dutch engineer. He was
Wakatsu Port is a river mouth port which located at invited by Meiji government. This training levee is also
10km upstream from the river mouth of Chikugo River, called "de Rijke training levee".
Kyusyu, Japan as shown in Figure 1. Wakatsu Port was

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3. ANALYSIS METHOD

3.1 1D unsteady flow model

In this study, at first 1D numerical simulation for an
unsteady flow is executed to obtain boundary conditions
for a quasi 3D unsteady flow model. As boundary
conditions for the 1D model, an observed river discharge
at Senoshita of Chikugo River and the one at Hideki of
Jobaru River are given as upstream boundaries, while an
observed water level at the river mouth of Chikugo River
and the one at Hayatsue of Hayatsue River are given as
downstream boundaries.

3.2 Quasi 3D hydrodynamic model

As a next step, quasi 3D hydrodynamic model is used to Figure 2. A photograph of Wakatsu Port training levee ,
grasp the detail flow feature around the training levee. A built in 1890(Length=6km).
river discharge at upstream boundary and a water level
at downstream boundary of Hayatsue are given from the
1D flow simulation's result. Figure 3 shows the observed
river discharge in July, 2007 at Senoshita located 25km
upstream from the river mouth of Chikugo River. During
the first half month, three floods occurred but after that
no flood was happened so that the effect of tide can be
also examined for the simulation. As a water level at the
river mouth of Chikugo River, the observed data shown
in Figure 4 are used. A simulation period is from July 1 to
July 31, 2007. To consider the functions of the training
levee, a case that the training levee exists and a case
without the training levee are simulated. Topographical
data of Chikugo River for the 3D computational domain
are given by interpolation of sounding data by Chikugo Figure 3. An observed river discharge of Chikugo River at
River Office. Senoshita in July, 2007 (provided from MLIT).

3.3 Sediment transport model

A movement of sediment in the water is simulated by

solving 3D diffusion equation of the sediment. This
equation includes a settling velocity ws of the suspended
sediment and a source term which describes deposition
or erosion of the sediment. For the deposition modeling,
the following equation (Krone, 1962) is used.

tb
1-
S Dws Cb
t cd
,
Figure 4. Observed and calculated water level changes at
6.8km upstream from the river mouth of Chikugo River in
[1] July, 2007.
where S D is an deposition rate, ws is the settling velocity
of the suspended sediment, Cb is the concentration of the
By using sediment transport model, changes of the river
suspended sediment near the bed, t b is an instantaneous
bed are calculated for both cases, that is, a case with the
bed shear stress, t cd is a critical shear stress for
training levee and another case without the training
deposition.
levee. The topographical data, boundary conditions for
For the erosion modeling, the following equation for a upstream river discharge and downstream water levels
soft, partly consolidated bed (Parchure and Mehta, 1985) are same with the quasi 3D hydrodynamic model. Data
is applied. of water temperature and salinity are given by the
observation result (Ito et al., 2012). Concentrations of
suspended load are given by the observation result
(Hirakawa et al., 2009) with additional calculations based
(
SE = E e
a t b -t ce
) , (t b > t ce ) on the flow magnitude.
[2]
where S E is an erosion rate, E is the erodibility, t ce is a
critical shear stress for erosion.

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4. RESULTS OF ANALYSIS AND Figure
DISCUSSION 6
shows
4.1 Results of 1D unsteady flow a case
Figure 4 shows a comparison between observed water of the
level and calculated one at Wakatsu station of Chikugo river
River. Although about 0.5m water level's difference bed
appears during low tide, there are few difference for
other period, so that the necessary precision of the 1D
unsteady flow is satisfied.

4.2 Comparison of flow velocity distribution between

the case with the training levee and the one without
it during an ordinary water period

Figure 5(a, b) shows comparisons of the flow velocity

distributions between the case considering the training
levee and the case of no training levee against flood tide
(Figure 5a) and ebb tide (Figure 5b) in spring tide. During
ebb tide, the flow velocity becomes high, especially for
the case with the training levee, the flow velocity of the
left side is accelerated. On the other hand, during flood
tide, the flow velocity is slower than the ebb tide and
there is little difference of both sides' flow velocities Figure 5(b). Comparison of flow velocity distribution between
the case with the training levee and the case of no training
although the left side flow velocity in this case is also levee against flood tide in spring tide during the ordinary
accelerated. Therefore, the flow velocity of the left side water period
channel is accelerated as a whole because of the existence
of Wakatsu Port training levee.

Figure 6 River bed variation's distribution from July 16 to

31, 2007 during the ordinary water period

variation's distribution from July 16 to July 31, 2007 in

Figure 5(a). Comparison of flow velocity distribution between
the case with the training levee and the case of no training levee
against ebb tide in spring tide during the ordinary water period
4.3 Comparison of river bed variations between the case
with the training levee and the one without it
during the ordinary water period of the river
which no flood occurs and this period can be considered
as the ordinary water level period. Between the intervals
from 3km point to 6km point, the river beds for the both
cases tend to increase regardless of training levee's
existence. In the case with the training levee, the
deposition in the left side channel is low, while the
deposition in the center is low in the case of no training
levee. Between the intervals from 0km point to 3km
point, the increase of left side channel bed is restrained
more than the right side river bed in the case of the

3
training levee existence. In the case of no training levee,
the river bed increases more than the interval from 3km
point to 6km point. Therefore, it can be explained that the
existence of the training levee is suppressing the increase
of left side river bed as a whole.
Figure 7(a, b) depicts the cumulative variations of the
river bed height for P1, P2, P3 and P4 or for P5, P6, P7
decrease more than the case with the training levee.
However, between the intervals from 1.0km point
to 3km point, the case with the training levee
continues the tendency of the river bed decrease,
while the case without the training levee change the
situation to deposition. From this result, the
training levee has a function to let the river bed be
eroded effectively to keep the ship route.

Figure 7(a) Cumulative variations of the river bed

height during the ordinary water period (x=5km)

Figure 8 River bed variation's distribution from July 1 to 15,

2007 during the flood water period

Figure 7(b) Cumulative variations of the river bed height

during the ordinary water period( x=2km)

and P8 in Figure 6 respectively during the ordinary water

level of the river. From Figure 6, it can be said that there
is a different tendency of river bed deposition between
P1, P3, P4 and P2. A P2 curve means the cumulative
variation of the left side river bed height in the case of the
training levee's existence and slope of P2 is milder than
other P1, P3 and P4. From this result, the river bed during
the ordinary water level of the river has always a
tendency to increase, but deposition rates are suppressed Figure 9(a) Cumulative variations of the river bed height
during the flood water period (x=5km)
by the training levee, especially the increase of the left
side river bed highly suppressed.

4.4 Comparison of river bed variations between the case

with the training levee and the one without it
during the flood water period of the river

Figure 8 shows a case of the river bed variation's

distribution from July 1 to July 15, 2007 in which
three floods occur and this period can be
considered as the flood water period. Between the
intervals from 3.5km point to 6km point, the river
beds of the case without the training levee tend to

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Figure 9(b) Cumulative variations of the river bed height
during the flood water period (x=2km)
Figure 9(a, b) depicts the cumulative variations of the
river bed height for P1, P2, P3 and P4 or for P5, P6, P7
and P8 in Figure 8 respectively during the flood water
level of the river.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

From Figure 9(a), only the point P2 which is located Topographical data and other hydraulic data are
in the left side channel of the river has an erosion provided by MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism, Japan). The simulations of the
feature because the flood flow is accelerated by the
river flow and sediment transport are supported by DHI
existence of the training levee. From Figure 9(b), the Japan. The information of Wakatsu Port training levee
all points have erosion features but its magnitude is and Johannis de Rijke are provided from MLIT, Specified
much different. There is the most difference in the Nonprofit Organization of Ohkawa Mirai Juku and the
cumulative variations of the river bed height society for the study of de Rijke training levee. The
between the point P6 and P5 with the different authors deeply thank the above organizations concerned.
effects from the variations of the flow field due to
the existence of the training levee even at the same REFERENCES
longitudinal location. During the flood water Edelvang, K., Lund-Hansen, L.C., Christiansen, C.,
period, P7 and P8 also have the erosion effect. There Petersen, O.S., Uhrenholdt, T., Laima, M. and
are three flood peaks shown in the Figure 3 from Berastequi, D.A.(2002). Modelling of suspended
July 1 to July 15. Therefore, three sudden decreases matter transport from the Oder River, Journal of
of the river bed height can be seen in this period. Coastal Research, 18(1), 62-74.
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In this study, flow and sediment transport in the lower
estuary based on monitoring data from oceanographic
reach of Chikugo River are numerically simulated to
observation tower, Oceanography in Japan, 21(1), 1-16,
have a quantitative evaluation of the functions of
(in Japanese).
Wakatsu Port training levee. As a result of quasi 3D flow
Krone, R.B.(1962). Flume Studies of the Transport of
simulation, existence of the training levee causes to
Sediment in Estuarine Shoaling Processes, Final Report
accelerate the flow of left side channel of the river. The
to San Francisco District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
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Washington D.C.
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Mehta, A.J., Hayter, E.J., Parker, W.R., Krone, R.B. and
becomes smaller due to the existence of the training levee
Teeter, A.M., (1989). Cohesive sediment transport. I:
although the river bed tends to increase by the act of tidal
Process description, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering,
movement. As Chikugo River is a tidal river, there is a
ASCE, 115(8), 1076-1093.
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Parchure, T.M. and Mehta, A.J., (1985). Erosion of soft
river, reverse flow carries much sediment from the
cohesive sediment deposits, Journal of Hydraulic
Ariake Sea. However, during the flood water period of
Engineering, ASCE, 111(10), 1308-1326..
the river, sudden decrease of the river bed height occur
by the peak flow of the flood followed by the gradual
erosion due to the transport of resuspended sediment by
the flood flow and tidal current. Wakatsu Port training
levee was built more than 120 years ago but this river
facility has still the function of weakening the deposition
effect of the sediment especially in the left side river
channel of Chikugo River lower reach.