sluice

A sluice is a water-channel or trough equipped with a gate or other means to regulate flow. The term can refer to the channel itself, the gate used to regulate water, or the combination of channel and gate. Sluices appear in a variety of contexts, including civil engineering, hydrology, and mining.

In civil engineering, sluice gates control the discharge of water from rivers, canals, and drainage systems. They may be vertical slide gates, radial gates, or wedge gates. By raising or lowering the gate, operators adjust water level, regulate flood hazards, manage irrigation supplies, or control flows into turbines and other equipment. Sluice structures are often incorporated into spillways, weirs, sluice ponds, or lock systems in navigation.

In mining, a sluice is a long, sloping trough through which water is directed to separate heavier minerals from lighter material. A sluice box typically contains riffles or other obstructions that trap dense particles such as gold as gravel and sand wash past. The method of using water to recover minerals from sediment is known as sluicing and has been used since ancient times and throughout gold rush periods. Modern variants include mechanical sluice boxes and highbankers that operate with a constant water supply.

Some irrigation systems use sluices to admit water into fields or to release water from storage basins. In all cases, the defining feature is a controllable opening that regulates the flow of water from one area to another.