How does the development of particle scale structure control river scale morphology?

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The transport of sediments is a key process in the global geological cycle, a cornerstone of aquatic ecosystems and has a multi-billion pound impact on agricultural, industrial and urban, flood- and erosion-risk hazards. Understanding and being able to predict the stability of gravel river beds is important for multiple reasons: changes in river bed shape will change the channel capacity and thus affect flood risk; the bed stability affects the amount of sediment that can be moved by the flow, which will have impacts on the downstream channel morphology and dynamics; the river bed is a habitat for many species, and thus changes in the river bed will have implications for the river ecosystem; and in order to manage and restore rivers effectively, channels need to be designed with a known level of stability.However, current ability to predict sediment entrainment and thus river bed stability is limited by our understanding of the factors that affect sediment movement. Grain size is typically accounted for, but other factors such as sediment structure (the way in which individual sediment grains are packed together in 3D) and the role of fine sediments in cementing grains together are not. Furthermore, these factors vary spatially across the bed of a river, producing a spatial pattern of areas that are more or less easily entrained, i.e. a template of erodibility. We hypothesis that this spatial pattern of erodibility plays an important role in controlling both the shape of the river bed, and how this shape changes under different flow conditions. We will test this hypothesis by quantifying, for the first time, the development of 3D sediment structure in both a field and a laboratory environment using high energy CT-scanning. These data will allow us to identify causal relationships between the different controls and sediment structure. The application of this technique to large numbers of samples from both field and laboratory settings will provide a significant and unique dataset for understanding the structure and production of 3D bed sediments.Using an existing theoretical framework, we will use the data from both the flume and field data to produce relationships that can be used to predict sediment structure, and consequently the erodibility of the bed, from the controlling factors of sediment input and flow. This relationship will be implemented within a numerical modelling framework in which we will upscale from the field and flume to represent additional range of channel and flow conditions. We will work with end-users to ensure that the new knowledge is transferred effectively into guidance for policy and operational activity within the river management community.