De Boever, Simon

Hendrickx, Hanne

Nyssen, Jan

Van Roeyen, Hannah

Ghent University Academic Bibliography

Geophysical Research AbstractsVol. 21, EGU2019-2966, 2019EGU General Assembly 2019© Author(s) 2019. CC Attribution 4.0 license.The water balance of historical watermills – case of the Strijpen mill in theScheldt basin (Belgium)Hannah Van Roeyen (1), Simon De Boever (2), Hanne Hendrickx (1), and Jan Nyssen (1)(1) Ghent University, Department of Geography, Belgium (hannah.vanroeyen@belgacom.net; hanne.hendrickx@ugent.be;jan.nyssen@ugent.be)), (2) Ghent University, Department of Electrical Energy, Metals, Mechanical Constructions andSystems, Belgium (simon.deboever@ugent.be)The strongest early developments in the hydrological theory were related to the practical need to master the surfacewater balance. Here we investigate the functioning of the hydrological system of overshot mills in rivers with smalland irregular discharges. The water balance and its different components are quantified. In addition, a quantitativeinvestigation was done on the possible effects of increasing the mill pond’s storage volume and the installation of aparallel stream for fish migration. The research was carried out at a typical overshot mill that has been functioningwithout interruption for at least five centuries, the Van Den Borre’s mill at Strijpen in Belgium. Fieldwork wascarried out from August 2017 till April 2018, and involved the installation of three staff gauges, three water pressuretransducers, one barometric data logger, as well as one rain gauge, all synchronised. Data were recorded on minutebasis. A specific campaign was designed to study the energetic efficiency at different discharges, in which the sameparameters were recorded, as well as energy production on half-hourly basis. All terms of the water balance weredetermined: direct rain, discharge in head- and tailrace, change to storage in mill ponds, groundwater flow anddirect evaporation (very small in comparison to the other terms). Average discharge of the incoming Traveinsbeekwas between 0.01 m3 s-1 in August 2017 to 0.12 m3 s-1 in December 2017. As the discharge of the river isgenerally too small to operate the mill, storage is crucial – there is a storage capacity of 2962 m3, of which only75 m3 is dead storage. The energetic efficiency of the mill is 62 – 69%. Depending on the available water, in aweek’s time 62 to 282 kWh of electric power can be generated, what corresponds to the average consumption ofone to four households. Assuming a mill that works every day, pond enlargements would lead to an increase inproduction by 4%, the main limitation being the low incoming discharge. However, the construction of a parallelstream for fish migration would lead to an average decrease of energy production by 43%. The installation of suchan ecological asset needs to be balanced against the heritage value of a rare working historical watermill in its fulllandscape setting. The hydrological system of the Van Den Borre’s mill is well designed for a daily use of the mill,in which the potential energy of the water is efficiently converted into electric power. In a context where the studiedhydrological system still represents the historical conditions, this indicates an age-old nearly perfect understandingof hydrology and energetic efficiency of watermills.

The water balance of historical watermills : case of the Strijpen mill in the Scheldt basin (Belgium)

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The water balance of historical watermills : case of the Strijpen mill in the Scheldt basin (Belgium)

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