A freeze-coring technique applied to pollution by fine sediments in gravel-bed rivers

Fine sediments exhibit various stages of deposition and erosion during their transport from hillslopes to the ocean. In mountainous environments, high fine sediment load during runoff or dam flushing events can lead to important amounts of deposits in gravel bed rivers. Massive deposits may lead to bar elevation, riparian vegetation growth and consequently to bar stabilization, which can increase flood risks. High amount of fine sediment deposits alters also aquatic life and habitat.In order to better understand the dynamics of re-suspension of these deposits, and to accurately predict it with numerical modelling, field monitoring campaigns were performed to assess both the spatial variability and the controlling factors of the erodibility of fine deposits. The cohesive strength-meter (CSM) device, a pocket penetrometer and a pocket shear vane were used to evaluate the erodibility of fine sediments deposited in two rivers in the French Alps: The Is&#232;re and Galabre.The results highlight the specificity of gravel bed rivers with an abundance of areas of deposition of fine sediments, which are discontinuous compared to estuaries and lowland rivers. A high spatial variability of the erodibility was observed and related to the spatial organization of the deposits. The location of the deposit and its elevation, the moisture and the grain sizes are inter-related and have important correlations with the erodibility. Measurements show that high altitude dry deposits and low altitude humid deposits are more easily eroded than intermediate deposits with medium moisture. The measured variables explain part of the variability of the erodibility but other processes such as the history or the origin of the deposit might also be important factors to consider.

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The Prediction of Fine Sediment Distribution in Gravel-Bed Rivers Using a Combination of DEM and FNN

Water ◽

10.3390/w12061515 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 1515

Author(s):

Van Hieu Bui ◽

Minh Duc Bui ◽

Peter Rutschmann

Keyword(s):

Feedforward Neural Networks ◽

Fine Sediment ◽

Sediment Distribution ◽

Gravel Bed ◽

Fine Sediments ◽

Porosity Variation ◽

Sediment Sorting ◽

Gravel Bed Rivers ◽

Bed Material ◽

The Relationship

Large amounts of fine sediment infiltration into void spaces of coarse bed material have the ability to alter the morphodynamics of rivers and their aquatic ecosystems. Modelling the mechanisms of fine sediment infiltration in gravel-bed is therefore of high significance. We proposed a framework for calculating the sediment exchange in two layers. On the basis of the conventional approaches, we derived a two-layer fine sediment sorting, which considers the transportation of fine sediment in the form of infiltration into the void spaces of the gravel-bed. The relationship between the fine sediment exchange and the affected factors was obtained by using the discrete element method (DEM) in combination with feedforward neural networks (FNN). The DEM model was validated and applied for gravel-bed flumes with different sizes of fine sediments. Further, we developed algorithms for extracting information in terms of gravel-bed packing, grain size distribution, and porosity variation. On the basis of the DEM results with this extracted information, we developed an FNN model for fine sediment sorting. Analyzing the calculated results and comparing them with the available measurements showed that our framework can successfully simulate the exchange of fine sediment in gravel-bed rivers.

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