Abstract
Gravel-bed surfaces exist widely in natural rivers, and their roughness characteristics are closely relevant to many aspects of river dynamics, such as sediment incipient motion, bed-load movement, and bed resistance. Average particle size and non-uniformity are two important parameters for describing the particle composition of a gravel-bed surface, but how they affect the bed surface roughness is unknown. Therefore, nine groups of gravel-bed surfaces were manually paved, and the precise digital elevations of the bed surfaces were obtained by a 3D laser scanner, and the influences of average particle size and non-uniformity on the gravel-bed roughness characteristics are discussed based on common statistical parameters and variograms. The results showed that the elevation distributions of the experimental bed surfaces present negative skewness and leptokurtosis. The median elevation of each bed surface is fairly close to the average elevation, and their absolute deviation is less than 1 mm. However, the elevation mode is close to the average elevation only when the average particle size is smaller than 15 mm; when the average particle size is larger than 20 mm, the elevation mode is obviously greater than the average elevation. The sill of the two-dimensional variogram and the elevation variance are equivalent for quantitatively describing the variation intensity of the bed surface elevations. The elevation variability of any one profile shows obvious fluctuations and cannot represent the variability characteristics of the bed surface elevations. Average particle size is the first-order control factor on the statistical roughness characteristics of the gravel-bed surfaces, while non-uniformity does not show significant influence. The porosity significantly influences the sediment dry density, and an increasing dry density is usually followed by a decreasing porosity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aberle J, Nikora V (2006) Statistical properties of armored gravel-bed surfaces. Water Resour Res 42:1–11
Ackers P, White W (1973) Sediment transport: new approach and analysis. J Hydraul Eng 99:2041–2060
Baewert H, Bimböse M, Bryk A, Rascher E, Morche D (2014) Roughness determination of coarse grained alpine river bed surfaces using terrestrial laser scanning data. Zeitschrift Für Geomorphologie Supplement 58:81–95
Benoit C, Atilla B, Magnus L (2006) Equivalent roughness height for plane bed under steady flow. J Hydraul Eng 132:1146–1158
Bergeron NE (1996) Scale-space analysis of stream-bed roughness in coarse gravel-bed streams. Math Geol 28:537–561
Bertin S, Friedrich H (2014) Measurement of gravel-bed topography: evaluation study applying statistical roughness analysis. J Hydraul Eng 140:269–279
Brasington J, Vericat D, Rychkov I (2012) Modeling river bed morphology, roughness, and surface sedimentology using high resolution terrestrial laser scanning. Water Resour Res 48:11–18
Bray DI (1979) Estimating average velocity in gravel-bed rivers. J Hydraul Div 105:1103–1127
Butler J, Lane S, Chandler J, Porfiri E (2002) Through-water close range digital photogrammetry in flume and field environments. Photogram Rec 17:419–439
Camenen B, Bayram A, Larson M (2006) Equivalent roughnessn height for plane bed under steady flow. J Hydraul Eng 132:1146–1158
Camenen B, Larson M, Bayram A (2009) Equivalent roughness height for plane bed under oscillatory flow. Estuar Coast Shelf Sci 81:409–422
Chang FJ, Chung CH (2012) Estimation of riverbed grain-size distribution using image-processing techniques. J Hydrol 440–441:102–112
Clifford NJ, Robert A, Richards KS (1992) Estimation of flow resistance in grave-bedded rivers: a physical explanation of the multiplier of roughness length. Earth Surf Proc Land 17:111–126
Grossman EN, Gould M, Mujica-Schwann NP (2016) Robust evaluation of statistical surface topography parameters using focus-variation microscopy. Surf Topogr Metrol Prop 4:1–19
Hager WH, Giudice GD, Wu W, Wang SSY (2001) Movable bed roughness in alluvial rivers. J Hydraul Eng 127:627–629
Hammond FDC, Heathershaw AD, Langhorne DN (1984) A comparison between shields threshold criterion and the movement of loosely packed gravel in a tidal channel. Sedimentology 31:51–62
Hey RD (1979) Flow resistance in gravel-bed rivers. J Hydraul Div 105:365–379
Hodge RA (2010) Using simulated terrestrial laser scanning to analyse errors in high-resolution scan data of irregular surfaces. J Photogramm Remote Sens 65:227–240
Hodge R, Brasington J, Richards K (2009) Analysing laser-scanned digital terrain models of gravel-bed surfaces: linking morphology to sediment transport processes and hydraulics. Sedimentology 56:2024–2043
Kamphuis JW (1974) Determination of sand roughness for fixed beds. J Hydraul Res 12:193–203
Kirchner JW, Dietrich WE, Iseya F, Ikeda H (1990) The variability of critical shear stress, friction angle, and grain protrusion in water-worked sediments. Sedimentology 37:647–672
Kuhnle RA, Wren DG, Langendoen EJ (2016) Erosion of sand from a gravel-bed. J Hydraul Eng 142:1–8
Luo M, Wang X, Yan X, Huang E (2020) Applying the mixing layer analogy for flow resistance evaluation in gravel-bed streams. J Hydrol 589:125119
Marion A, Tait SJ, Mcewan IK (2003) Analysis of small-scale gravel-bed topography during armouring. Water Resour Res 39:291–297
Nikora VI, Goring DG, Biggs BJF (1998) On gravel-bed roughness characterization. Water Resour Res 34:517–527
Nikora V, Walsh J (2004) Water-worked gravel surfaces: high-order structure functions at the particle scale. Water Resour Res 40:1–7
Ockelford AM, Haynes H (2013) The impact of stress history on bed structure. Earth Surf Proc Land 38:717–727
Perret E, Berni C, Camenen B (2020) How does the bed surface impact low-magnitude bed load transport rates over gravel-bed rivers? Earth Surf Proc Land 45:1181–1197
Powell DM (2014) Flow resistance in gravel-bed rivers: progress in research. Earth Sci Rev 136:301–338
Qin J, Ng SL (2012) Estimation of effective roughness for water-worked gravel surfaces. J Hydraul Eng 138:923–934
Robert A (1988) Statistical properties of sediment bed profiles in alluvial channels. Math Geol 20:205–225
Rossi RE, Mulla DJ, Franz JEH (1992) Geostatistical tools for modeling and interpreting ecological spatial dependence. Ecol Monogr 62:277–314
Smart GM, Duncan MJ, Walsh JM (2002) Relatively rough flow resistance equations. J Hydraul Eng 128:568–578
Smart G, Aberle J, Duncan M, Walsh J (2004) Measurement and analysis of alluvial bed roughness. J Hydraul Res 42:227–237
Tarantola A, Valette B (1982) Generalized nonlinear inverse problems solved using the least squares criterion. Rev Geophys 20:219–232
Theule JI, Liébault F, Laigle D, Loye A, Jaboyedoff M (2015) Channel scour and fill by debris flows and bedload transport. Geomorphology 243:92–105
Wang Q, Wang L, Wang T, Yang K, Nie R (2021) Experimental study on the critical breakup condition of a static armour layer. River Res Appl 37:484–493
Webster R (1985) Quantitative spatial analysis of soil in the field. Adv Soil Sci 3:10–12
Zhong L, Wang S, Pan YW, Zhang JM, Xu GX, Ni ZH (2017) Statistical roughness properties of gravel-bed surfaces. Adv Eng Sci 49:1–9 (in Chinese)
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51979181, 51539007 and 51279117).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Amjad Kallel
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pan, Y., Liu, X., Cai, T. et al. Influences of average particle size and non-uniformity on the statistical roughness characteristics of gravel-bed surfaces. Arab J Geosci 15, 1021 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-022-10097-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-022-10097-3