Sediment Acoustic Methods
The Sediment Acoustic Leadership Team (SALT) promotes and develops technical guidance and training for using acoustic instruments to help potential users with decision support when selecting between four sediment-acoustics methods.
Acoustic Methods
The following paper provides additional information on the state of the science and decision support for measuring suspended sediment with the four acoustic methods mentioned below.
Acoustic instrumentation can be used to cost-effectively provide continuous and discrete estimates of suspended-sediment concentration (SSC), grain size, and load in fluvial systems at acceptable accuracy. Such estimates are essential for informed solutions to many sediment-related environmental, engineering, and land management concerns.
There are four primary methods for measuring suspended sediment with acoustic instruments:
- Point acoustics
- Single frequency sidelooking acoustics
- Multifrequency sidelooking acoustics
- Downlooking acoustics
The flowchart below helps with decision support when selecting the most applicable method depending on conditions on-site and desired temporal frequency.
