Sediment Transport in Proglacial Rivers

Abstract

Suspended and bedload transport in mountain rivers are notoriously difficult to monitor and thus to quantify. Even more challenging are proglacial streams that are generally characterized by high flow velocities, high sediment concentrations and transport rates, large and abrupt temporal variability of water discharge and transport rates, as well as by frequent morphological changes. However, the quantification of suspended and bedload transport rates is crucial to understand and predict short- and long-term morphodynamics in such sensitive systems. In this chapter, we present an updated summary on the current knowledge on the monitoring methods and on the observed dynamics of sediment transport in proglacial rivers, including both suspended and bedload fractions.