Smart Rivers: Instrumenting watercourses to measure transport processes and assess risk

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River hydraulics is an active area of research for a number of reasons including: pressures from urbanization and climate change on surface water networks; limitations in experimental and numerical approaches to longstanding problems like sediment transport; and technical advances that open up new possibilities. The proposed research aims to exploit new techniques to gain better information about how and when the building blocks of river structure, i.e. the stored wood and sediment, move in rivers. The rationale is that this information could be exploited to better assess risk. For instance, when wood and sediment move during floods, scour is occurring, bed elevations are changing, and the risk of wood jams or instability at built infrastructure such as bridges and sewers is elevated. Measuring movement and communicating that information in a timely manner could be used to facilitate rapid response. At time scales of years or decades, trends in sediment and wood movement underpin structural imbalances in river networks that can result from external forces such as urbanization and climate change. Network modelling tools are needed to put the right information into the hands of land-use planners and practicing engineers.***Over the next five years, my research group will advance the use of cutting-edge techniques, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), for sediment tracking and video analysis for sediment and wood transport measurement. We will develop easy' software that is accessible from common Geographic Information System interfaces and that allows integration with different types of information so that urban designers and planners can incorporate risks and costs associated with surface stream networks. Particular examples will include high-risk creeks in Southern Ontario and the Don River in Toronto, where the estuary is expected to be re-naturalized over the next decade. We will address knowledge gaps in the fundamentals of sediment transport research using advanced computational fluid dynamics capabilities and a purpose built CFI funded facility to model sediment transport in rivers. ***The proposed work is significant because smart rivers and the associated technologies will reduce risk associated with flooding and channel instability. The research will allow for a smoother climate change adaptation and assist with city planning for future growth and ongoing restoration needs. The results will also improve stream restoration designs and our understanding of sediment and wood transport processes in rivers.**