Impacts of Stream Bed Adjustments on Local Bridge Morphology at Highway 281

Details

• Creators:
  Admiraal, David ; Likins, Molly ; Wood, Richard ; Roy, Tirthankar ; Pokheral, Sudan ; Nasimi, Mitra ; Laiwal, Gul Ahmad
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  Nebraska. Department of Transportation ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Aerial Application Bridges Dam Failure Dams Data Analysis Failure Global Positioning System Morphological Adjustments Morphology Sand Deposits Sediments Sediment Transport Stream Banks

  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FY23(021)
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; Nebraska
• Edition:
  Final Report: July 2021 – August 2025
• Corporate Publisher:
  Nebraska. Department of Transportation
• Abstract:
  Nebraska sand-bed rivers have long been used in the development of well-known empirical bedload equations. Some of these studies have shown how adjustments in available sediment led to changes in local stream morphology. The sand-bed rivers of Nebraska are highly susceptible to such changes due to their wide, shallow cross-sections and erodibility. The objective of our study was to develop a methodology to predict both short and long-term channel adjustments for an aggraded sand-bed river – in particular, the Niobrara River. The field component of our study targeted the reaches of the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska near two bridges, the Highway 11 bridge and the Highway 281 bridge. These reaches are of particular interest because they are situated upstream and downstream of Spencer Dam, which failed in 2019, releasing large quantities of sand into the downstream reach. We began with collecting Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) data that provides us with point clouds and aerial photos of the sites and hand-collected PPK GPS data for streambed topography and for observing temporal changes at the sites.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  FY23(021)
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:aed706a2c74bd8bbcebbf1c5dbafb220dc5ebeaa444924ea436a5a1593f53b90298467ae97b79e447f1de9b0c14992c341be0a6ac982345da6c3a00ebbd1a32a
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/92541/dot_92541_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 10.15 MB ]