NetworkSedimentTransporter: A Landlab component for bed material transport through river networks

Allison Pfeiffer,Jonathan Czuba,Katherine Barnhart,Eric Hutton

doi:10.21105/joss.02341

Abstract

NetworkSedimentTransporter: A Landlab component for bed material transport through river networks

Highlights

The transport rate of any particular sediment grain on the river bed surface is a function of both the hydraulics of that reach of river and the size distribution of the other grains in the reach
Coarse sediment moves downstream through river networks
Computational morphodynamic models allow for the prediction of sediment pulse transport, such as that which occurs after dam removal (Cui, 2007a; Cui et al, 2006a, 2006b) or landsliding events (An, Cui, Fu, & Parker, 2017; Benda & Dunne, 1997), as well as the prediction of changes in river channel bed surface grain size (Ferguson, Church, Rennie, & Venditti, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

The transport rate of any particular sediment grain on the river bed surface is a function of both the hydraulics of that reach of river and the size distribution of the other grains in the reach. Computational morphodynamic models allow for the prediction of sediment pulse transport, such as that which occurs after dam removal (Cui, 2007a; Cui et al, 2006a, 2006b) or landsliding events (An, Cui, Fu, & Parker, 2017; Benda & Dunne, 1997), as well as the prediction of changes in river channel bed surface grain size (Ferguson, Church, Rennie, & Venditti, 2015). Most computational morphodynamic models take an Eulerian approach, which tracks changes in bed elevation through time as a function of the spatial gradient in sediment flux (e.g., Parker, 2020).

Results

Conclusion