DENSITY CURRENTS

• The water stored in the reservoir is generally free from silt.
• The flood inflow is generally muddy and heavily charged with silt.
• Thus during floods there are two waters having different densities present is the reservoir.
• Heavily silt charged water flows along the bottom of the channel towards the dam under the influence of gravity.
• This current of heavily silt charged water flowing along the bottom of the reservoir towards the dam is know Density current.
• If the density currents, are directly discharg out of the reservoir by suitably positioning and operating the sluice gates, the rate of reservoir silting can be considerably reduced.