In the States of Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, there are tame 440 reservoirs exclusive of farm ponds, built for water‐supply, power, flood‐control, recreation, or conservation. Their aggregate cost is estimated at $415,000,000. Approximately 25 of these reservoirs have been studied for the purpose of estimating their rates of silting. Most of the field‐examinations were of the nature of a reconnaissance, although data on several reservoirs obtained from published reports were apparently derived from instrumentally controlled surveys. Examinations by the Soil Conservation Service consist of soundings and determinations of depths of sediment at numerous points in the reservoir, but because instrumental control was not used the results, which are averages of the measurements, must be considered only as approximate and not comparable with Soil Conservation Service detailed surveys. They are, however, a useful and inexpensive method of making rough estimates of silting damage and determining the range of magnitude of sediment‐production per unit of area. They are probably at least as good as, if not better than, suspended‐load records of only one or two years' duration.
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Brune et al. (1941) studied this question.