Statistics of Sediment Transport in Goodwin Creek

Abstract

Sand and gravel transport were sampled in flow rates from just above to several times the critical shear stress of the bed material at two sites on Goodwin Creek, Mississippi. Transport rates representative of the channel cross section were calculated from these samples. The standard deviations of the transport rates were approximately equal to the mean for transport rates grouped by bed shear stress. Normalized probability density functions defined for the transport rates were most closely approximated by a gamma form of the probability function. The probable accuracy in the prediction of the time-averaged transport rate for a given number of measured transport rates can be calculated from this information.