Multiscale Sediment-Laden Flow Theory and Its Application in Flood Risk Management

Abstract

Sediment‐laden flows over erodible bed normally feature multiple time scales. The time scales of sediment transport and bed deformation relative to the flow essentially measure how fast sediment transport adapts to capacity regime in line with local flow scenario and the bed deforms as compared to the flow, which literally dictate if a capacity based and/or decoupled model is justified. This paper synthesizes the recently developed multiscale theory for sediment‐laden flows over erodible bed, with bed load and suspended load transport respectively. It is unravelled that bed load transport can adapt to capacity sufficiently rapidly even under highly unsteady flows and thus a capacity model is mostly applicable, whereas a non‐capacity model is critical for suspended sediment because of the lower rate of adaptation to capacity. Physically coupled modeling is critical for cases characterized by rapid bed variation. Applications are outlined on flash floods and landslide dam break floods.