A Parsimonious Model for Transport of Fine Sediments in Rivers
Authors:
Sally Thompson, Antoine Aubeneau, Suresh Rao, Nandita Basu, Marwan Hassan,
Aaron Packman, Gavan McGrath, Luigi Fraccarollo.
Transport of sediments of multiple particle sizes in river networks may result in
intermittent patterns of particle export. This intermittency arises from the mobilization of
sediments into the water column, physical transport processes and the sequestration and
re-suspension of sediments. We present a simple, event-based theoretical framework that
represents key sediment transport processes to describe the episodic transport of fine
sediments at the reach scale. The model for sediment transport was simplified by
performing a timescale separation between base-flow periods and flood events. This
permitted the mobile load of sediment in the reach to be linearly decomposed into a sum
of advective waves. The key advantage of this approach is that each wave retains a
unique history, making this model highly suitable for linking to studies of sediment
bound contaminants.
Author Affiliations:
Antoine Aubeneau
EM: aubeneau@gmail.com
AF: Environmental Engineering and Sciences, Department of Civil Engineering,
Northwestern University, A314 Technological Institute, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston,
Illinois, 60208-3109, USA
Thompson, Sally
EM: set8@duke.edu
AF: Nicholas School of the Environment, Levine Science Research Center, Duke
University, Durham, North Carolina, 27701, USA
Rao, P. Suresh
EM: pscr@purdue.edu
AF: School of Civil Engineering, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN 47907-2051, United States
Basu, Nandita
EM: nandita-basu@uiowa.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa, 107 C. Maxwell
Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory, Iowa City, IA 52242-1527, United States
Hassan, Marwan
EM: mhassan@geog.ubc.ca
AF: Dept. of Geography, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., V6T
1Z2, Canada
Aaron Packman
EM: a-packman@northwestern.edu
AF: Environmental Engineering and Sciences, Department of Civil Engineering,
Northwestern University, A314 Technological Institute, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston,
Illinois, 60208-3109, USA
Gavan McGrath
EM: gavan.mcgrath@uwa.edu.au
AF: School of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Australia (M087), 35
Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
Luigi Fraccarollo
EM: luigi.fraccarollo@ing.unitn.it
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Trento, Via
Mesiano, 77 I-38123 Trento, Italy.