Measuring the Statistics of Bed-Load Transport Using Indirect Sensors
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 137, Issue 1
Abstract
Several indirect methods have been proposed to measure bed-load transport rates. We analyze the relationships between bed-load transport rates, water discharge, and sensor response and determine what can and what cannot be measured with such sensors. We argue that indirect sensors are in most cases unsuitable to develop a rating curve of bed-load transport rates. Instead, they can be used to estimate sediment yields of individual events as proposed previously. We develop a method to estimate the standard deviations of transport rates and apply it to the field data from the Pitzbach in Austria, where direct high-resolution bed-load transport measurements are available. The method gives good results, depending on the choice of bed-load function used for the calculation. The standard deviations are overestimated by about .
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Acknowledgments
Many individuals working at the WSL made the continuing measurements at the Erlenbach possible. Special mention deserves B. Fritschi, who builds and maintains the equipment. TIWAG supported the campaign at the Pitzbach and made the data available. B. W. McArdell and A. Badoux commented on the concepts discussed in this article and advised on literature. We are grateful to the editor, the AE, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments. Part of this work was supported by SNF Grant No. UNSPECIFIED200021_124634/1.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 137 • Issue 1 • January 2011
Pages: 116 - 121
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 26, 2008
Accepted: May 10, 2010
Published online: May 14, 2010
Published in print: Jan 2011
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