Regime Channel Bedload Transport Equation

Abstract

Numerous theories have been presented over the years for quantifying bedload transport in streams and rivers. These theories have been derived using physical processes, statistical methods, and semiempirical and empirical methods and rely on a variety of hydraulic, boundary, and bed material properties. Most of these equations represent instantaneous bedload transport related to temporal hydraulic and bed conditions and are not well-suited to estimate long-term average bedload over a broad range of channels. Using a pure empirical analysis, the author has developed a dimensionally homogeneous regime channel bedload transport equation not requiring bedload measurements for calibration or verification. The new equation was developed using 45 data sets and verified using 29 additional data sets encompassing a very broad range of channel conditions and was found to rely solely on stream power and bank-full stream power or, for practical applications, flow and bank-full flow. Statistical metrics indicated better performance by the new equation than by other bedload transport equations evaluated using the same source data and statistical methods.