Suspended-sediment transport measurement

Of the two operationally defined phases of fluvial-sediment transport – suspended load and bedload – collection of suspended-load data is the more common. This is a reflection of a number of factors including the general predominance of suspended load over bedload in mass transport and the greater difficulty and costs associated with collecting bedload data. Acquisition of suspended-sediment data for sediment-transport computations requires collection of water-sediment samples that represent, or can be reliably adjusted to represent, the mean discharge-weighted concentration and particle-size distribution in a cross section at the time of sample collection. Analytical results from a sufficient number of representative samples obtained with concurrent water-discharge values are needed to compute suspended-sediment discharge for the period of interest.