All Datasets

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.

The evolution of sand bedforms through time was observed through time-lapse overhead camera imagery at Clear Run, a small, sand-bedded stream in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. These observations were made as part of a larger study of "hyporheic" (i.e., surface-subsurface) solute and fine particle exchange through the injection and tracking of tracer solutes and particles in the stream channel. In particular, two scenarios were considered for observing hyporheic exchange and associated bedform evolution: (1) steady background "base" flow conditions, and (2) time-varying "flood wave" conditions associated with the opening of an artificial dam upstream of the observation section on the stream. The overall study is described in Harvey et al. (2012, Journal of Geophysical Research 117, G00N11, doi:10.1029/2012JG002043).

This dataset contains processed images for the steady and transient bedform evolution observed at Clear Run on September 18, 2009. The images provided here were captured with a Nikon D5000 camera looking downward from approximately 2.5m above the stream bed. Time-lapse images were captured every 30 seconds. The images were rotated to align with the stream channel geometry and cropped to remove the stream banks and other non-bedform components of the image. Steady-flow images were further processed to normalize for variation in lighting. Specific details for each set of images are provided here:

(1) Steady base flow observations (individual .jpg images contained in folder "ClearRunSteady_CroppedRotatedNorm")
Images numbered 12 to 588 (577 total images, numbers increasing through time) were captured at 30-second intervals during steady base flow conditions on 18 September 2009, starting at 11:00:32 AM local time (Eastern Daylight Time). In all images, flow is from left to right. The vertical (spanwise) extent of the images is 2664 pixels (175.0 cm), and the horizontal (streamwise) extent is 1520 pixels (99.9 cm), based on a conversion factor of 0.0657 cm/pixel.

(2) Transient flood wave observations (individual .jpg images contained in folder "ClearRunFlood_CroppedRotated")
Images numbered 1 to 300 (300 total images, numbers increasing through time) were captured at 30-second intervals during the artificially-induced dam-release flood wave on 18 September 2009, starting at 4:08:32 PM local time (Eastern Daylight Time). In all images, flow is from left to right. The vertical (spanwise) extent of the images is 2904 pixels (201.8 cm), and the horizontal (streamwise) extent is 1612 pixels (112.0 cm), based on a conversion factor of 0.0695 cm/pixel.

An additional metadata file ("ClearRun_metadata.xlsx") provides timing information for each of the photos in the steady and transient flow collections.

Sediment transport experiments with variable water discharge conducted at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota. These experiments explore the effects of flood hydrograph shape on bed-load transport dynamics. The dataset is composed of over 200 individual experimental runs with varying discharge and sediment feed rates for a unimodal sediment mixture with a median size of 7 mm. Raw data included in this data set for each experimental flood includes time series of varying water level and force on the load cell due to the accumulating sediment flux. These data are processed into time series of water depth, dimensional and dimensionless stress, sediment mass, and sediment flux for each run. Accompanying these data are topographic scans of the sediment bed of 1 mm vertical and spatial resolution.

Bed Elevation grids from March and July 2015 sampling missions upstream of the Diamond Creek USGS sediment gage.
Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park.
Matlab scripts used to calculate bedload flux from RMB, SB, and MSB bed elevation profiles.

Data and scripts provided to carry out the methods of Leary & Buscombe "Estimating Sand Bedload in Rivers by Tracking Dunes: a comparison of methods based on bed elevation time-series", submitted to Earth Surface Dynamics, July 2019.

This work was funded by the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program administered by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. government.

Questions regarding this dataset? Contact Kate Leary at learykcp@ucsb.edu

Measurements of particle motions were obtained using a manual tracking method within the program ImageJ. The data include 1250 frames or 5 seconds of high-speed imagery, associated coordinates of particle motions, and derived measurements of particle motions (e.g. instantaneous velocities, particle accelerations, hop distances, and travel times). These are associated with figures posted in this file and also within our paper ''Experimental evidence of statistical ensemble behavior in bed load sediment transport'', DOI: 10.1002/2015JF003552.

These data relate to infragravity energy fluxes variability between landward and seaward swales of a cape-related shoal. Observations of water velocity and near-bottom pressure were obtained from upward looking acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) at inner and outer swales of Shoal E, offshore Cape Canaveral, Florida Atlantic coast. Measurements were conducted during Fall 2013, Spring 2014 and Fall 2014. Mean water depths during all deployments at eastern and western swales were ~13 and ~14 m, respectivley. Pressure and velocity data were recorded in bursts of 1200, 2048, 2400, or 3600 data at 2 Hz. Pressure was measured ca. 1 m above the bed, whereas velocities were obtained at one depth, between 3 and 7 m above the bed. This collection also includes wave statistics (significant wave height, peak period, and peak direction), and infragravity energy fluxes.

TDB-15-2: Fan-delta experiment performed in Tulane University Delta Basin. Experiment evolved under constant sea-level rise rate of 0.25 mm/hr, and variable forcings of water and sediment. After run hour 300, water discharge alternated between 0.14 L/s and 0.45 L/s, and sediment discharge alternated between 0.00014 L/s and 0.00045 L/s. Prior to run hour 300, water discharge was 0.17 L/s, and sediment discharge was 0.00017 L/s. Experiment used a strongly cohesive sediment that had a wide grain size distribution with a median diameter of 65 microns. Total experiment run time was 733 hr, variable discharge began after hour 300. Experiment was paused every 1.1 hours for data collection.

After variable flow was initiated, the following data were collected during each 1.1 hr cycle:

-Overhead photo during low flow conditions
-Overhead photo during high flow conditions
-Overhead photo during experiment pause while delta top was dry.
-Topographic scan during high flow conditions.
-Topographic scan during pause/dry conditions.


Data Files:

Folder "TDB_15_2 Original Data" contains overhead raw overhead photographs (.jpg) and scans (point cloud .xyz). Each row of the point cloud contains the following data:

[row col X Y Z R G B];

Folder "TDB_15_2_Results and Processed Data" contains overhead photograph and scan data gridded to a 5mm x 5 mm grid. Gridded data begins at hour 535, after the final scanner physical location was established. RGB color data included in the "Scans_Gridded" folder was collected with the scanner, at the same time as topographic (Z) data.

All length data (X, Y, Z) are in meters. All colors (R, G, B) are in intensities from 1 to 255. Colors in gridded data sets may be non-integers because of the interpolation process. A value of NaN indicates no data in that grid cell.

TDB_15_2_BasinDimensions.png shows the dimensions of the experimental entrance condition, and orients the coordinate system.

TDB_15_2_RunTimeConversions.xlsx shows the conversion between run hours and run cycles.

Photos of the erodible stones following flow events, taken by Brian McArdell.

This dataset includes data from flume experiments run in 2014 at Arizona State University investigating bedload transport and turbulent structures downstream of a 3.81 cm backward-facing step. Two high-speed cameras captured bedload motion and motion of neutrally buoyant particles in the flow at 9 different distance downstream of the backward-facing step. Bedload transport data were collected using manual particle tracking techniques on the bedload images. Neutrally buoyant particle images were run through Particle Image Velocimetry algorithms to generate a two-dimensional field of fluid velocity vectors. Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry data were also recorded to refine fluid velocity measurements.

Data included herein:
(1) Raw bedload images (Sed_raw.zip & sed130.zip)
(2) Raw PIV images (PIV_all.zip)
(3) Bedload transport .csv files (Bedload_Flux_AllRuns.xlsx)
(4) Bedload time series (both downstream [DS] and cross-stream [CS]) .csv files
(5) Bedload Tracking Videos
(6) ADV files (ADV.zip)
(7) Bedload Tracking .csv files (Sediment_Tracking.zip)

This research is in collaboration with Dr. Mark Schmeeckle and was supported by a National Science Foundation research grant (award number: 1226288; PI: Mark Schmeeckle).

Questions regarding this dataset should be directed to Kate Leary (learykcp@gmail.com).