Whether the goal is to promote or limit sedimentation, sustainability of rivers and
reservoirs is a difficult and costly issue to address after problems have occurred. As an
example, it would cost $83 billion to restore Lake Powell on the Colorado River to its
original capacity once fully sedimented, assuming a suitable disposal facility could be found
for 43 billion cubic yards of sediment [Morris and Fan, 1998J. Therefore, methods to
control these processes before they lead to severe problems provide cost effective means for
balancing problems and benefits associated with the cultural resources that rivers and
reservoirs provide.