All Datasets

Data and MATLAB codes used to produce the analysis and figures reported in "Accelerated river avulsion frequency on river deltas due to sea-level rise." The data and codes are organized into 3 folders: Scripts, Functions, and Data. The contents of each folder are outlined in a readme document.

Data sets described by Esposito, C.E., & Georgiou, I.Y., Straub, K.M. (2020). Flow Loss in Deltaic Distributaries: Impacts on Channel Hydraulics, Morphology and Stability. Water Resources Research.

ADCP.xlsx: ADCP transect summary data
WSE.csv: Water surface elevation
Q1858.xlx: Discharge data from the flood of 1858, compiled from data tables of Humphreys, C. A. and Abbot, L. H.: Report upon the physics and hydraulics of the Mississippi River, Corps of Topographical Engineers, United States Army, Washington., 1867.

This dataset includes all measured information and digital elevation models of the experiments reported in the following manuscript:
https://www.earth-surf-dynam-discuss.net/esurf-2019-73/

Abstract of the paper:
Climate and tectonics impact water and sediment fluxes to fluvial systems. These boundary conditions set river form and can be recorded by fluvial deposits. Reconstructions of boundary conditions from these deposits, however, is complicated by complex channel-network interactions and associated sediment storage and release through the fluvial system. To address this challenge, we used a physical experiment to study the interplay between a main channel and a tributary under different forcing conditions. In particular, we investigated the impact of a single tributary junction, where sediment supply from the tributary can produce an alluvial fan, on channel geometries and associated sediment-transfer dynamics. We found that the presence of an alluvial fan may promote or prevent sediment to be moved within the fluvial system, creating different coupling conditions. A prograding alluvial fan, for example, has the potential to disrupt the sedimentary signal propagating downstream through the confluence zone. By analyzing different environmental scenarios, our results indicate the contribution of the two sub-systems to fluvial deposits, both upstream and downstream of the tributary junction, which may be diagnostic of a perturbation affecting the tributary or the main channel only. We summarize all findings in a new conceptual framework that illustrates the possible interactions between tributary alluvial fans and a main channel under different environmental conditions. This framework provides a better understanding of the composition and architecture of fluvial sedimentary deposits found at confluence zones, which is essential for a correct reconstruction of the climatic or tectonic history of a basin.

Experiment to explore shelf-edge deltas and coupled downslope submarine fan systems that experience changes in relative sea level. Stage 1 included construction of system with constant relative sea level, stage 2 captured system evolving under short relative sea level cycles with small magnitudes, stage 3 captured system evolving under a long relative sea level cycles with a large magnitude. Size and durations of relative sea level cycles were scaled to autogenic scales. Input flow was delivered with a flood cycle and input flow contained dissolved salt to promote plunging of turbidity currents at shelf-edge.

Supporting information for the project ‘Physical experiments on fill-terrace formation and sediment-signal disruption’

This data collection contains topographic scans, overhead photographs and experiment documentation of the experiments published in Tofelde, S., Savi, S., Wickert, A., Bufe, A., Schildgen, T., 2019. Alluvial channel response to environmental perturbations: Fill-terrace formation and sediment-signal disruption. ESurf.
The experiments were run in November and December 2015 at Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory, Minneapolis, USA. The experimental setup consisted of a wooden box with dimensions of 4 m x 2.5 m x 0.4 m that was filled with quartz sand with a mean grain size of 144 μm. At the inlet, water discharge (Qw) and sediment supply (Qs,in) could be regulated separately. At the 20 cm wide outlet sediment discharge (Qs,out) could be measured and the base level could be controlled. The water was dyed blue to better distinguish wet from dry areas.
This dataset contains seven experiments. In each experiment, we varied either upstream water discharge (Qw), upstream sediment supply (Qs,in) or downstream base level. For each experiment, we provide an experiment log sheet, the topographic laser scans, overhead photographs and time-lapse movies. Details on each dataset are given below.

1. Experiment documentation
The metadata for each experiment is summarized in an excel spreadsheet. For each experiment, we provide the input parameters (Qs,in and Qw), the bed elevation at the inlet and outlet and the according bed slope (assuming a straight channel), sediment discharge at the outlet (Qs,out) and the start and stop times to perform the topographic laser scans.

2. Topographic scans
Laser scans were performed every 30 minutes (exception base-level fall experiment, 10 to 15 min) using a custom built laser scanner. The scans were acquired in five parallel, overlapping swaths that were merged afterwards (merged scans provided here). The experiments had to be interrupted to acquire the scans (absolute times given in the excel spreadsheet). The horizontal resolution is 1 mm and the scans cover 1700 by 3400 pixels, cutting 300 pixels at the upstream and downstream end, respectively. Scans are numbered with the numbers given in the excel spreadsheet.

3. Overhead photographs
Overhead photographs were acquired every 20 seconds using a fish-eye lens. The distorted photos were ortho-rectified in Adobe Photoshop using an inbuilt lens correction and were resampled at a 1 mm horizontal resolution (corrected photos provided here). Photos are named by date and absolute time and are provided in jpg format (e.g. Img2015-12-05 11.45.49
copy.jpg). Each folder contains two additional text files containing the image names and the according experimental runtime in seconds. Photos taken without running water, or when the dye was not working, were removed. No photos were taken for the Ctrl_1 experiment due to an error in the camera installation.

4. Time-lapse movies
In addition, time lapse videos of each run were generated by stitching the overhead photos together. Movies were generated from the unprocessed photos and are thus for display only, not for analyses.

Sometimes you can over-analyze data... SEAD leverages Clowder which includes a broad range of automated metadata extractor/pattern recognition tools. If you happen to run the ones that look for faces on your data from river delta growth experiments, you may find more than you bargained for!

I like mp1, mp4, and mp7...

TDB-16-3: Fan-delta experiment performed in Tulane University Delta Basin. Experiment evolved under constant forcings of water (0.17 l/s), mean sediment (1.41 kg/hr), and long term sea-level rise rate (0.25 mm/hr). Experiment run time was 875 hr. Experiment used a strongly cohesive sediment that had a wide grain size distribution with a median diameter of 65 microns. Sediment supply rate remained constant until run hour 140. During run hour 140-385 sediment supply followed a sine wave pattern with period of 24.5 hrs and peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.87 kg/h. During run hour 385-875, sediment supply followed a sine wave pattern with period of 98 hr and peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.43 kg/hr. Experiment performed to explore interaction of autogenic sediment transport with sediment supply cycles and resulting stratigraphy with topography monitored every 1 hour of run time.

TDB-16-2: Fan-delta experiment performed in Tulane University Delta Basin. Experiment evolved under constant forcings of water discharge (0.17 l/s), mean sediment supply (1.41 kg/hr), and long term sea-level rise rate (0.25 mm/hr). Experiment run time was 630 hr. Experiment used a strongly cohesive sediment that had a wide grain size distribution with a median diameter of 65 microns. Sediment supply during the final 490 hrs followed a sine wave pattern with period of 98 hrs and peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.22 kg/h. Experiment performed to explore interaction of autogenic sediment transport with sediment supply cycles and resulting stratigraphy with topography monitored every 1 hour of run time.

These data are the results from numerical simulations of river delta evolution and avulsion as reported in "Origin of a preferential avulsion node on lowland river deltas." Also included is a readme file containing a brief description of each model run by filename, and a MATLAB script showing how to extract model output data.

TDB-16-1: Fan-delta experiment performed in Tulane University Delta Basin. Experiment evolved under constant forcings of water (0.17 l/s), mean sediment (1.41 kg/hr), and long term sea-level rise rate (0.25 mm/hr). Experiment run time was 630 hr. Experiment used a strongly cohesive sediment that had a wide grain size distribution with a median diameter of 65 microns. Sediment supply during the final 490 hrs followed a sine wave pattern with period of 24.5 hrs and peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.22 kg/h. Experiment performed to explore interaction of autogenic sediment transport with sediment supply cycles and resulting stratigraphy with topography monitored every 1 hour of run time.

These data include grain size, meteoric Beryllium-10 concentrations, excess Lead-210 activities, and Cesium-137 activities for 158 sediment samples collected from within the Greater Blue Earth watershed and Lake Pepin, in southern Minnesota.

A total of 44 cross-sections were surveyed on the Le Sueur and Maple rivers, near Mankato, Minnesota in 2008 and again in 2015. The cross sections were initially measured in 2008 to support development of a watershed sediment budget (Belmont et al., 2011; Gran et al., 2011) and a numerical sediment routing model (Viparelli et al., 2014). The flood of record occurred in 2010, with several other large floods in subsequent years. So the cross-sections were repeated in 2015 in an effort to quantify morphological changes in the channel to inform development of a morphodynamic channel-floodplain model (Call et al., 2017). In each survey, a total of 20 bankfull cross-section surveyed on the Le Sueur River and another 24 cross sections were surveyed on the Maple River.