Gravel Transport from Impact Plates in the Goodwin Creek Experimental Watershed, Panola County, Mississippi

Abstract

Gravel transport is difficult to measure in streams and rivers, but it is needed for assessing the impact of dam removal on river systems, for studies of streambed ecology, for steam restoration, and for engineering design of in-channel structures. The measurement of gravel transport is particularly challenging because it is both temporally and spatially heterogenous, it must sometimes be measured at remote locations, and it is labor-intensive and time consuming. Steel plates equipped with accelerometers that are installed in a channel bed can be used for automated measurement of gravel transport by detecting the impacts of gravel particles being transported in the channel. In this study, two accelerometer-equipped stainless-steel impact plates were installed in the Goodwin Creek Experimental Watershed (GCEW) near Batesville, MS. Flow and transport rates from 30 flow events are presented here to show the efficacy of the system and to study gravel bedload in Goodwin Creek. It was found that flow events typically produced clockwise transport rate hysteresis, likely indicating supply-limited conditions for gravel on the falling limbs of hydrographs. The data collected during the study are useful for modeling efforts, the development of gravel bedload measurement techniques and methods, and understanding GCEW hydrology.