Measuring Sediment Transport Capacity of Concentrated Flow with Erosion Feeding Method

Liqin Qu (), Tingwu Lei (), Chenyan Zhou and Xiusheng Yang
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Liqin Qu: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, China
Tingwu Lei: College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Chenyan Zhou: College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Xiusheng Yang: Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06279, USA

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: Sediment transport capacity in rills is an important parameter for erosion modeling on hillslopes. It is difficult to measure, especially at gentle slopes with limited rill length. In this study, a special flume with variable slope gradients in upper and lower sections was implemented to measure the sediment transport capacity. The upper flume section with a higher slope gradient generates faster water flow that could scout more sediment to feed the water flow in the rill. The rest of the flume is set at the designated slopes to measure the transport capacity in different slope and runoff conditions. A series of flume experiments were conducted with silt-loam soil to verify the method. The sediment transport capacity was measured under slope gradients of 5°, 10°, 15°, 20°, and 25° and a flow rate of 2, 4, 8, and 16 L min −1 . The measured sediment transport capacity values were compared with reference measurements from other rill erosion experiments with similar materials and setups. At high slope gradients of 15°, 20°, and 25°, the newly suggested method produced almost the same transport capacity values. Under the low slope gradients of 5° and 10°, the maximum sediment concentrations from the 8 m long flume with the uniform gradients in the previous experiments, rill erosion with an 8 m long flume produced were about 36% lower than the values measured with the new method, which is insufficient to make the flow reach sediment transport capacity. The sediment transport capacities at lower slopes measured with the new method followed the same trend as those at higher slopes. The new method can supply enough sediments to ensure the flow approach transport capacity measurement and, therefore, provides a feasible approach for estimating sediment transport capacity for conditions with relatively gentle slopes.

Keywords: sediment transport capacity; rill flow; sediment feeding; increased slope; rill erosion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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