Armoring Processes in a Regulated Tropical River: La Miel River Case
Abstract
This study analyzes the armoring process that occurs in the La Miel River (Colombia), an important tropical river that is regulated and strongly modified in its hydrological, hydraulic, and sedimentological regimes. Three different approaches were used to confirm the armoring hypothesis: 1) qualitative verification of the armoring process carried out during a field trip. 2) quantitative verification of armoring using the criteria defined by Little y Meyer (1976) for the geometric standard deviation of the granulometry of the bed (determined with the BASEGRAIN software). and 3) analysis of the records of suspended and bed sediment load in the hydrosedimentological monitoring stations. The results indicate that La Miel river is armor according to field evidence and the marked decrease in the bed sediment load In addition, it is identified that the armoring process has occurred on shorter time scales than those reported in the literature for extratropical rivers due to excess transport capacity caused by the systematic increase in minimum flows after the regulation and transfer of the Guarinó and Manso rivers. On the other hand, we can indicate that there is a significant flow threshold (234 m3/s) which must be exceeded to break the armor layer and for bed load transport to be present.
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