Sediment budget Lake Georgetown, Grand Prairie, Texas

A sediment budget is the balance between sediment deposited into a reservoir and produced by the supplying watershed. A sediment budget was developed for Lake Georgetown. The contributing watershed is located in the physiographic providence (eco-region) Grand Prairie, Texas. An acoustic survey was conducted over Lake Georgetown in July 2004 to determine the sediment volume (623 acre-ft) deposited since impoundment. Cores were collected from key sites within the reservoir to calibrate the acoustic results, determine the water content (51%), and dry weight density of sediment (43 lb/ft3). Using the calculated dry weight density of sediment, the reservoir contained 593,792 tons of sediment. AVSWAT models generated for the watershed produced 551,979 tons of sediment. Using Griener's method and the AVSWAT models, future predictions of the effects of land use change on sedimentation are calculated.