Reduced bed material stability and increased bedload transport caused by foraging fish: a flume study with juvenile Barbel (Barbus barbus)

The plants and animals that inhabit river channels may act as zoogeomorphic agents affecting the nature and rates of sediment recruitment, transport and deposition. The impact of benthic‐feeding fish, which disturb bed material sediments during their search for food, has received very little attention, even though benthic feeding species are widespread in rivers and may collectively expend significant amounts of energy foraging across the bed. An ex situ experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of a benthic feeding fish (Barbel Barbus barbus) on particle displacements, bed sediment structures, gravel entrainment and transport fluxes. In a laboratory flume changes in bed surface topography were measured and grain displacements examined when an imbricated, water‐worked bed of 5.6 to 16 mm gravels was exposed to feeding juvenile Barbel (on average, 0.195 m in length). Grain entrainment rates and bedload fluxes were measured under a moderate transport regime for substrates that had been exposed to feeding fish and control substrates which had not. On average, approximately 37% of the substrate, by area, was modified by foraging fish during a four‐hour treatment period, resulting in increased microtopographic roughness and reduced particle imbrication. Structural changes by fish corresponded with an average increase in bedload flux of 60% under entrainment flows, whilst on average the total number of grains transported during the entrainment phase was 82% higher from substrates that had been disturbed by Barbel. Together, these results indicate that by increasing surface microtopography and undoing the naturally stable structures produced by water working, foraging can increase the mobility of gravel‐bed materials. An interesting implication of this result is that by increasing the quantity of available, transportable sediment and lowering entrainment thresholds, benthic feeding might affect bedload fluxes in gravel‐bed rivers. The evidence presented here is sufficient to suggest that further investigation of this possibility is warranted. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bedload: a granular phenomenon

Bedload, the transport of sediment remaining in contact with the stream bed, has mainly been studied from the perspective of the correlation between fluid driving forces and the responding sediment flux. Yet grain–grain interactions are important and bedload should also be considered as a granular phenomenon. We review progress made recently in the study of granular flows, especially on segregation and rheology, that better illuminates the nature of bedload. Granular flows may exhibit gas‐like or fluid‐like flow, or quasi‐solid deformation. All three conditions might be duplicated in bedload. Understanding of intense bedload transport occurring continuously in a layer several grains deep – typical of sand beds – might greatly benefit from results in granular physics, as illustrated by grain‐inspired bedload results. However, processes restricted to the surface of the bed, when particles move intermittently and the bed becomes structured, while characteristic in gravel‐bed channels, are not well addressed in granular physics. Mutual study of these phenomena may benefit both physics and fluvial geomorphology. We intend, therefore, to contribute to an enhanced dialogue between granular physics and bedload science communities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Water‐worked gravel beds in laboratory flumes – a natural analogue?

An investigation has been conducted to identify the key parameters that are likely to scale laboratory sediment deposits to the field scale. Two types of bed formation were examined: one where sediment is manually placed and screeded and the second where sediment is fed into a running flume. This later technique created deposits through sequential cycles of sediment transport and deposition. Detailed bed surface topography measurements have been made over a screeded bed and three fed beds. In addition, bulk subsurface porosity and hydraulic conductivity have been measured. By comparing the four beds, results revealed that certain physical properties of the screeded bed were clearly different from those of the fed beds. The screeded bed had a random organization of grains on both the surface and within the subsurface. The fed beds exhibited greater surface and subsurface organization and complexity, and had a number of properties that closely resembled those found for water‐worked gravel beds. The surfaces were water‐worked and armoured and there was preferential particle orientation and direction of imbrication in the subsurface. This suggested that fed beds are able to simulate, in a simplified manner, both the surface and subsurface properties of established gravel‐bed river deposits. The near‐bed flow properties were also compared. It revealed that the use of a screeded bed will typically cause an underestimation in the degree of temporal variability in the flow. Furthermore, time‐averaged streamwise velocities were found to be randomly organized over the screeded bed but were organized into long streamwise flow structures over the fed beds. It clearly showed that caution should be taken when comparing velocity measurements over screeded beds with water‐worked beds, and that the formation of fed beds offers an improved way of investigating intragravel flow and sediment–water interface exchange processes in gravel‐bed rivers at a laboratory scale. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transport of moderately sorted gravel at low bed shear stresses: The role of fine sediment infiltration

A reliable estimation of sediment transport in gravel‐bed streams is important for various practical engineering and biological studies (e.g., channel stability design, bed degradation/aggradation, restoration of spawning habitat). In the present work, we report original laboratory experiments investigating the transport of gravel particles at low bed shear stresses. The laboratory tests were conducted under unsteady flow conditions inducing low bed shear stresses, with detailed monitoring of the bed topography using a laser scanner. Effects of bed surface arrangements were documented by testing loose and packed bed configurations. Effects of fine sediments were examined by testing beds with sand, artificial fine sand or cohesive silt infiltrated in the gravel matrix. Analysis of the experimental data revealed that the transport of gravel particles depends upon the bed arrangement, the bed material properties (e.g., size and shape, consolidation index, permeability) and the concentration of fine sediments within the surface layer of moving grains. This concentration is directly related to the distribution of fine particles within the gravel matrix (i.e., bottom‐up infiltration or bridging) and their transport mode (i.e., bedload or suspended load). Compared to loose beds, the mobility of gravel is reduced for packed beds and for beds clogged from the bottom up with cohesive fine sediments; in both cases, the bed shear stress for gravel entrainment increases by about 12%. On the other hand, the mobility of gravel increases significantly (bed shear stress for particle motion decreasing up to 40%) for beds clogged at the surface by non‐cohesive sand particles. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does the permeability of gravel river beds affect near‐bed hydrodynamics?

The permeability of river beds is an important control on hyporheic flow and the movement of fine sediment and solutes into and out of the bed. However, relatively little is known about the effect of bed permeability on overlying near‐bed flow dynamics, and thus on fluid advection at the sediment–water interface. This study provides the first quantification of this effect for water‐worked gravel beds. Laboratory experiments in a recirculating flume revealed that flows over permeable beds exhibit fundamental differences compared with flows over impermeable beds of the same topography. The turbulence over permeable beds is less intense, more organised and more efficient at momentum transfer because eddies are more coherent. Furthermore, turbulent kinetic energy is lower, meaning that less energy is extracted from the mean flow by this turbulence. Consequently, the double‐averaged velocity is higher and the bulk flow resistance is lower over permeable beds, and there is a difference in how momentum is conveyed from the overlying flow to the bed surface. The main implications of these results are three‐fold. First, local pressure gradients, and therefore rates of material transport, across the sediment–water interface are likely to differ between impermeable and permeable beds. Second, near‐bed and hyporheic flows are unlikely to be adequately predicted by numerical models that represent the bed as an impermeable boundary. Third, more sophisticated flow resistance models are required for coarse‐grained rivers that consider not only the bed surface but also the underlying permeable structure. Overall, our results suggest that the effects of bed permeability have critical implications for hyporheic exchange, fluvial sediment dynamics and benthic habitat availability. © 2017 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Spatial variations in surface sediment structure in riffle–pool sequences: a preliminary test of the Differential Sediment Entrainment Hypothesis (DSEH)

Riffle–pool sequences are maintained through the preferential entrainment of sediment grains from pools rather than riffles. This preferential entrainment has been attributed to a reversal in the magnitude of velocity and shear stress under high flows; however the Differential Sediment Entrainment Hypothesis (DSEH) postulates that differential entrainment can instead result from spatial sedimentological contrasts. Here we use a novel suite of in situ grain‐scale field measurements from a riffle–pool sequence to parameterize a physically‐based model of grain entrainment. Field measurements include pivoting angles, lift forces and high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) acquired using terrestrial laser scanning, from which particle exposure, protrusion and surface roughness were derived. The entrainment model results show that grains in pools have a lower critical entrainment shear stress than grains in either pool exits or riffles. This is because pool grains have looser packing, hence greater exposure and lower pivoting angles. Conversely, riffle and pool exit grains have denser packing, lower exposure and higher pivoting angles. A cohesive matrix further stabilizes pool exit grains. The resulting predictions of critical entrainment shear stress for grains in different subunits are compared with spatial patterns of bed shear stress derived from a two‐dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the reach. The CFD model predicts that, under bankfull conditions, pools experience lower shear stresses than riffles and pool exits. However, the difference in sediment entrainment shear stress is sufficiently large that sediment in pools is still more likely to be entrained than sediment in pool exits or riffles, resulting in differential entrainment under bankfull flows. Significantly, this differential entrainment does not require a reversal in flow velocities or shear stress, suggesting that sedimentological contrasts alone may be sufficient for the maintenance of riffle–pool sequences. This finding has implications for the prediction of sediment transport and the morphological evolution of gravel‐bed rivers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determining hydraulic resistance in gravel‐bed rivers from the dynamics of their water surfaces

Traditionally, approaches to account for the effect of the boundary roughness of a gravel‐bed river have used a grain‐size index of the bed surface as a surrogate for hydraulic resistance. The use of a single grain‐size does not take into account the spatial heterogeneity in the bed surface and how this heterogeneity imparts resistance on the flow, nor the way in which this relationship changes with variables such as flow stage. A new technique to remotely quantify hydraulic resistance is proposed. It is based on measuring the dynamics of a river's water surface and relating this to the actual hydraulic resistance created by a rough sediment boundary. The water surface dynamics are measured using a new acoustic technique, grazing angle sound propagation (GRASP). This proposed method to measure hydraulic resistance is based on a greater degree of physical reasoning, and this is discussed in the letter. By measuring acoustically the temporal dynamics of turbulent water surfaces over a water‐worked gravel bed in a laboratory flume, a dependency is demonstrated between the temporal variation in the reflected acoustic pressure and measured hydraulic resistance. It is shown that the standard deviation in acoustic pressure decreases with increasing hydraulic resistance. This is shown to apply for a range of relative submergences and bed slopes that are typical of gravel‐bed rivers. This remote sensing technique is both rapid and inexpensive, and has the potential to be applied to natural river channels and to other environmental turbulent flows, such as overland flows. A whole new class of low‐cost, remote and non‐intrusive instruments could be developed as a result and used in a wide range of hydraulic and hydrological applications. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coupled hierarchical modeling approach to simulating the geomorphic response of river systems to anthropogenic climate change

Anthropogenic climate change is expected to change the discharge and sediment transport regime of river systems. Because rivers adjust their channels to accommodate their typical inputs of water and sediment, changes in these variables can potentially alter river morphology. In this study, a hierarchical modeling approach was developed and applied to examine potential changes in reach‐averaged bedload transport and spatial patterns of erosion and deposition for three snowmelt‐dominated gravel‐bed rivers in the interior Pacific Northwest. The modeling hierarchy was based on discharge and suspended‐sediment load from a basin‐scale hydrologic model driven by a range of downscaled climate‐change scenarios. In the field, channel morphology and sediment grain‐size data for all three rivers were collected. Changes in reach‐averaged bedload transport were estimated using the Bedload Assessment of Gravel‐bedded Streams (BAGS) software, and the Cellular Automaton Evolutionary Slope and River (CAESAR) model was used to simulate the spatial pattern of erosion and deposition within each reach to infer potential changes in channel geometry and planform. The duration of critical discharge was found to control bedload transport. Changes in channel geometry were simulated for the two higher‐energy river reaches, but no significant morphological changes were found for a lower‐energy reach with steep, cohesive banks. Changes in sediment transport and river morphology resulting from climate change could affect the management of river systems for human and ecological uses. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining the physical components of boundary shear stress for water‐worked gravel deposits

It is argued in this commentary that, in order to understand better the physical mechanisms that generate boundary shear stress over water‐worked gravel beds, flow velocity data should be re‐evaluated by spatial averaging the Reynolds equations to produce time‐ and space‐averaged (double‐averaged) momentum equations. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted in which the flow velocities were measured using a PIV system over two water‐worked gravel deposits. Combined with detailed data on the bed surface topography and vertical porosity, the physical components of shear stress were obtained. This enabled the various momentum transfer mechanisms present above, within and at the interface of a porous, fluvial deposit, to be quantified. This included the examination of the relevant contributions of temporal and spatial fluctuations in velocity and surface drag to the overall momentum transfer. It is demonstrated that double‐averaging represents a logical framework for assessing the fluid forces responsible for sediment entrainment and for investigating intragravel flow and sediment–water interface exchange mechanisms within the roughness layer in water‐worked gravel deposits. By considering the physical components of shear stress and their relative sizes it was possible to provide a physically based explanation for existing observations of enhanced mobility of gravel–sand mixtures and the transfer of solutes into porous, gravel deposits. This analysis reveals the importance of obtaining co‐located, high quality spatial data on the flow field and bed surface topography in order to gain a physical understanding of the mechanisms which generate boundary shear stress. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How does the bed surface impact low-magnitude bedload transport rates over gravel-bed rivers?

Bedload transport is a complex phenomenon that is not well understood, especially for poorly sorted sediment and low transport rates, which is what is typically found in alpine gravel-bed rivers. In this paper, the interaction between bedload rate, bed stability and flow is investigated using flume experiments. Significant differences in bedload rates were observed for experiments conducted on beds formed with the same gravel material but presenting diverse arrangements and bedforms. Tests were performed under regimes of low transport rate, which are mainly controlled by gravel-bed roughness. Different scales of roughness were identified using the statistical characteristics of detailed bed elevation measurements: grain, structure and large bedform scales. The role played by these different roughness scales in bedload dynamics was examined. For quasi-flat beds, bed stability was quantified using a combination of bed surface criteria describing grain and structure scales. It was found that bed stability affects the bedload rate directly and not only through its influence on the flow or on the incipient motion. For beds with large bedforms, the analysis of bedload dynamics also showed the importance of accounting for effective bed shear stress distributions. An empirical bedload model for low transport regimes was suggested. Compared with previous formulae developed for alpine rivers, this model accounts for bed stability and distribution of effective bed shear stress. It significantly improves the understanding of gravel dynamics over complex beds such as arranged beds or those with large bedforms. However, further tests are needed to use the model outside the range of conditions of this study. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of changes in fine‐grained matrix on bedload sediment transport in a gravel‐bed river

While clay and silt matrices of gravel‐bed rivers have received attention from ecologists concerned variously with the deteriorating environments of benthic and hyporheic organisms, their impact on sediment entrainment and transport has been explored less. A recent increase of such a matrix in the bed of Nahal Eshtemoa, an ephemeral river of the northern Negev, has more than doubled the boundary shear stress needed to initiate bedload, from 7 N m^‐2 (τ^* = 0.027) during the flash floods of 1991–2001 to 15 N m^‐2 (τ^* = 0.059) during those of 2008–2009. The relation between bedload flux and boundary shear stress continues to be well‐defined, but it is displaced. The matrix now contains a significant amount of silt and clay size material. The reasons for the increased entrainment threshold of bedload are explored. Large‐scale laser scanning of the dry bed reveals a reduction in grain‐scale morphological roughness, while artificial in situ tests of matrix integrity indicate considerable cohesion. The implications for adopting bed material sampling strategies that account for matrix development are assessed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Formation and erosion of sediment cover in an experimental bedrock‐alluvial channel

Sediment grains in a bedrock‐alluvial river will be deposited within or adjacent to a sediment patch, or as isolated grains on the bedrock surface. Previous analysis of grain geometry has demonstrated that these arrangements produce significant differences in grain entrainment shear stress. However, this analysis neglected potential interactions between the sediment patches, local hydraulics and grain entrainment. We present a series of flume experiments that measure the influence of sediment patches on grain entrainment. The flume had a planar bed with roughness that was much smaller than the diameters of the mobile grains. In each experiment sediment was added either as individual grains or as a single sediment pulse. Flow was then increased until the sediment was entrained. Analysis of the experiments demonstrates that: (1) for individual grains, coarse grains are entrained at a higher discharge than fine grains; (2) once sediment patches are present, the different in entrainment discharge between coarse and fine grains is greatly reduced; (3) the sheltering effect of patches also increases the entrainment discharge of isolated grains; (4) entire sediment patches break‐up and are eroded quickly, rather than through progressive grain‐by‐grain erosion; (5) as discharge increases there is some tendency for patches to become more elongate and flow‐aligned, and more randomly distributed across the bed. One implication of this research is that the critical shear stress in bedrock‐alluvial channels will be a function of the extent of the sediment cover. Another is that the influence of sediment patches equalizes critical shear stresses between different grain sizes and grain locations, meaning that these factors may not need to be accounted for. Further research is needed to quantify interactions between sediment patches, grain entrainment and local hydraulics on rougher bedrock surfaces, and under different types of sediment supply. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Insights into bedload transport processes of a large regulated gravel‐bed river

A comprehensive monitoring programme focusing on bedload transport behaviour was conducted at a large gravel‐bed river. Innovative monitoring strategies were developed during five years of preconstruction observations accompanying a restoration project. A bedload basket sampler was used to perform 55 cross‐sectional measurements, which cover the entire water discharge spectrum from a 200‐year flood event in 2013 to a rare low flow event. The monitoring activities provide essential knowledge regarding bedload transport processes in large rivers. We have identified the initiation of motion under low flow conditions and a decrease in the rate of bedload discharge with increasing water discharge around bankfull conditions. Bedload flux strongly increases again during high flood events when the entire inundation area is flooded. No bedload hysteresis was observed. The effective discharge for bedload transport was determined to be near mean flow conditions, which is therefore at a lower flow discharge than expected. A numerical sediment transport model was able to reproduce the measured sediment transport patterns. The unique dataset enables the characterisation of bedload transport patterns in a large and regulated gravel‐bed river, evaluation of modern river engineering measures on the Danube, and, as a pilot project has recently been under construction, is able to address ongoing river bed incision, unsatisfactory ecological conditions for the adjacent national park and insufficient water depths for inland navigation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Bedload’ dynamics: Grain-grain interactions in water flows

Owing to experimental difficulties, the transport stage at which collisions between moving ‘bedload’ grains might become significant has never been investigated, yet the existence or otherwise of such collisions is of some importance in the understanding of the mechanics of sediment transport, in particular the theory developed by Bagnold. Application of the basic principles of gaseous kinetic theory to ‘bedload’ grains moving in saltant trajectories and the adoption of a ‘characteristic’ saltation path leads to the prediction that grain-grain collisions should dominate in the transport of coarse sands over plane beds in water flows above a transport stage of about 2, i.e. when the mean boundary fluid shear stress exceeds the critical boundary shear stress for grain motion by about 4 times. Above this stage interrupted saltations should always occur, with the ‘bedload’ grains held above the stationary bed by a combination of fluid and solid momentum transfer mechanisms. A classification of the types of grain motions is given and evidence is presented for the existence of an upward decrease in grain collision frequency and of grain concentration at the top of the ‘bedload’ zone.     

Patterns of bedload entrainment and transport in forested headwater streams of the Columbia Mountains,Canada

We monitor bedload transport and water discharge at six stations in two forested headwater streams of the Columbia Mountains, Canada. The nested monitoring network is designed to examine the effects of channel bed texture, and the influence of alluvial (i.e. step pools and riffle pools) and semialluvial morphologies (i.e. boulder cascades and forced step pools) on bedload entrainment and transport. Results indicate that dynamics of bedload entrainment are influenced by differences in flow resistance attributable to morphology. Scaled fractional analysis shows that in reaches with high form resistance most bedload transport occurs in partial mobility fashion relative to the available bed material, while calibers finer than 16 mm attain full mobility during bankfull flows. Equal mobility transport for a wider range of grain sizes is achieved in reaches exhibiting reduced form resistance. Our findings confirm that the Shields value for mobilization of the median surface grain size depends on channel gradient and relative submergence; however, we also find that these relations vary considerably for cobble and gravel bed channels due to proportionality between dimensionless shear stress and grain size. Exponents of bedload rating curves across sites correlate most with the D_90s of the mobile bed, however, where grain effects are controlled (i.e. along individual streams), differences in form resistance across morphologies exert a primary control on bedload transport dynamics. Application of empirical formulae developed for use in steep alpine channels present variable success in predicting transport rates in forested snowmelt streams. Formulae that explicitly account for reductions in mobile bed area and high morphological resistance associated with woody debris provide the best approximation to observed empirical data. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aerodynamic entrainment thresholds and dislodgement rates on impervious and permeable beds

In the literature it has been suggested that on permeable, granular beds, both the threshold and rate of aerodynamic entrainment may be affected significantly by seepage flows into and out of the bed induced by fluctuating pressures in the overlying turbulent boundary layer. Using a range of grain sizes and flow conditions, the series of laboratory experiments reported here compares directly the aerodynamic entrainment of loose grains overlying fixed permeable sediment beds with that occuring over fixed impervious beds. For a given granular material, no significant differences in entrainment dynamics on the two types of bed were observed and in the range of flow conditions examined both the threshold shear velocity (U _*T) and the aerodynamic entrainment coefficient (k) were found to be independent of bed permeability.     

Through‐water terrestrial laser scanning of gravel beds at the patch scale

Acquiring high resolution topographic data of natural gravel surfaces is technically demanding in locations where the bed is not exposed at low water stages. Often the most geomorphologically active surfaces are permanently submerged. Gravel beds are spatially variable and measurement of their detailed structure and particle sizes is essential for understanding the interaction of bed roughness with near‐bed flow hydraulics, sediment entrainment, transport and deposition processes, as well as providing insights into the ecological responses to these processes. This paper presents patch‐scale laboratory and field experiments to demonstrate that through‐water terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has the potential to provide high resolution digital elevation models of submerged gravel beds with enough detail to depict individual grains and small‐scale forms. The resulting point cloud data requires correction for refraction before registration. Preliminary validation shows that patch‐scale TLS through 200 mm of water introduces a mean error of less than 5 mm under ideal conditions. Point precision is not adversely affected by the water column. The resulting DEMs can be embedded seamlessly within larger sub‐aerial reach‐scale surveys and can be acquired alongside flow measurements to examine the effects of three‐dimensional surface geometry on turbulent flow fields and their interaction with instream ecology dynamics. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Defining phases of bedload transport using piecewise regression

Differences in the transport rate and size of bedload exist for varying levels of flow in coarse‐grained channels. For gravel‐bed rivers, at least two phases of bedload transport, with notably differing qualities, have been described in the literature. Phase I consists primarily of sand and small gravel moving at relatively low rates over a stable channel surface. Transport rates during Phase II are considerably greater than Phase I and more coarse grains are moved, including material from both the channel surface and subsurface. Transition from Phase I to Phase II indicates initiation and transport of grains comprising the coarse surface layer common in steep mountain channels. While the existence of different phases of transport is generally acknowledged, the threshold between them is often poorly defined. We present the results of the application of a piecewise regression analysis to data on bedload transport collected at 12 gravel‐bed channels in Colorado and Wyoming, USA. The piecewise regression recognizes the existence of different linear relationships over different ranges of discharge. The inflection, where the fitted functions intersect, is interpreted as the point of transition from Phase I to Phase II transport; this is termed breakpoint. A comparison of grain sizes moved during the two phases shows that coarse gravel is rarely trapped in the samplers during Phase I transport, indicating negligible movement of grains in this size range. Gravel larger than about D₁₆ of the channel surface is more consistently trapped during Phase II transport. The persistence of coarse gravel in bedload samples provides good evidence that conditions suitable for coarse grain transport have been reached, even though the size of the sediment approaches the size limits of the sampler (76 mm in all cases). A relative breakpoint (R_br) was defined by the ratio between the discharge at the breakpoint and the 1·5‐year flow (a surrogate for bankfull discharge) expressed as a percentage. The median value of R_br was about 80 percent, suggesting that Phase II begins at about 80 percent of the bankfull discharge, though the observed values of R_br ranged from about 60 to 100 percent. Variation in this value appears to be independent of drainage area, median grain size, sorting of bed materials, and channel gradient, at least for the range of parameters measured in 12 gravel‐bed channels. Published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Infiltration of fine sediment into a coarse mobile bed: a phenomenological study

Experiments were undertaken to study the nature of granular interaction in running water by examining the influence of fine grain inputs to a coarser sediment bed with a mobile surface. Video recordings of grain sorting by both kinetic sieving and spontaneous percolation are used to diagnose the critical processes controlling the overall bed response. Kinetic sieving takes place in the mobile bed surface, with the finer sediment moving to the bottom of the bedload transport layer at the interface with the underlying quasi‐static coarse bed. We show that the behavior at this interface dictates how a channel responds to a fine sediment input. If, by spontaneous percolation, the fine sediment is able to infiltrate into the underlying quasi‐static bed, the total transport increases and the channel degrades. However, if the fine sediment input rate exceeds the transport capacity or is geometrically unable to infiltrate into the underlying bed, it forms a quasi‐static layer underneath the transport layer that inhibits entrainment from the underlying bed, resulting in aggradation and an increase in bed slope. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gravel‐bed river evolution in earthquake‐prone regions subject to cycled hydrographs and repeated sediment pulses

Sediment often enters rivers in the form of sediment pulses associated with landslides and debris flows. This is particularly so in gravel‐bed rivers in earthquake‐prone mountain regions, such as Southwest China. Under such circumstances, sediment pulses can rapidly change river topography and leave the river in repeated states of gradual recovery. In this paper, we implement a one‐dimensional morphodynamic model of river response to pulsed sediment supply. The model is validated using data from flume experiments, so demonstrating that it can successfully reproduce the overall morphodynamics of experimental pulses. The model is then used to explore the evolution of a gravel‐bed river subject to cycled hydrographs and repeated sediment pulses. These pulses are fed into the channel in a fixed region centered at a point halfway down the calculational domain. The pulsed sediment supply is in addition to a constant sediment supply at the upstream end. Results indicate that the river can reach a mobile‐bed equilibrium in which two regions exist within which bed elevation and surface grain size distribution vary periodically in time. One of these is at the upstream end, where a periodic discharge hydrograph and constant sediment supply are imposed, and the other is in a region about halfway down the channel where periodic sediment pulses are introduced. Outside these two regions, bed elevation and surface grain size distribution reach a mobile‐bed equilibrium that is invariant in time. The zone of fluctuation‐free mobile‐bed equilibrium upstream of the pulse region is not affected by repeated sediment pulses under the scenarios tested, but downstream of the pulse region, the channel reaches different fluctuation‐free mobile‐bed equilibriums under different sediment pulse scenarios. The vertical bed structure predicted by the simulations indicates that the cyclic variation associated with the hydrograph and sediment pulses can affect the substrate stratigraphy to some depth. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.