Browsing by Author "Parker, Gary"

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    Modeling flow and sediment transport dynamics in the lowermost Mississippi River, Louisiana, USA, with an upstream alluvial-bedrock transition and a downstream bedrock-alluvial transition: Implications for land building using engineered diversions
    (Wiley, 2015) Viparelli, Enrica; Nittrouer, Jeffrey A.; Parker, Gary
    The lowermost Mississippi River, defined herein as the river segment downstream of the Old River Control Structure and hydrodynamically influenced by the Gulf of Mexico, extends for approximately 500?km. This segment includes a bedrock (or more precisely, mixed bedrock-alluvial) reach that is bounded by an upstream alluvial-bedrock transition and a downstream bedrock-alluvial transition. Here we present a one-dimensional mathematical formulation for the long-term evolution of lowland rivers that is able to reproduce the morphodynamics of both the alluvial-bedrock and the bedrock-alluvial transitions. Model results show that the magnitude of the alluvial equilibrium bed slope relative to the bedrock surface slope and the depth of bedrock surface relative to the water surface base level strongly influence the mobile bed equilibrium of low-sloping river channels. Using data from the lowermost Mississippi River, the model is zeroed and validated at field scale by comparing the numerical results with field measurements. The model is then applied to predict the influence on the stability of channel bed elevation in response to delta restoration projects. In particular, the response of the river bed to the implementation of two examples of land-building diversions to extract water and sediment from the main channel is studied. In this regard, our model results show that engineered land-building diversions along the lowermost Mississippi River are capable of producing equilibrated bed profiles with only modest shoaling or erosion, and therefore, such diversions are a sustainable strategy for mitigating land loss within the Mississippi River Delta.
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    Testing morphodynamic controls on the location and frequency of river avulsions on fans versus deltas: Huanghe (Yellow River), China
    (American Geophysical Union, 2014) Ganti, Vamsi; Chu, Zhongxin; Lamb, Michael P.; Nittrouer, Jeffrey A.; Parker, Gary
    A mechanistic understanding of river avulsion location and frequency is needed to predict the growth of alluvial fans and deltas. The Huanghe, China, provides a rare opportunity to test emerging theories because its high sediment load produces regular avulsions at two distinct nodes. Where the river debouches from the Loess Plateau, avulsions occur at an abrupt decrease in bed slope and reoccur at a time interval (607 years) consistent with a channel-filling timescale set by the superelevation height of the levees. Downstream, natural deltaic avulsions reoccur at a timescale that is fast (7 years) compared to channel-filling timescale due to large stage-height variability during floods. Unlike the upstream node, deltaic avulsions cluster at a location influenced by backwater hydrodynamics and show evidence for episodic downstream migration in concert with progradation of the shoreline, providing new expectations for the interplay between avulsion location, frequency, shoreline rugosity, and delta morphology.
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    The exceptional sediment load of fine-grained dispersal systems: Example of the Yellow River, China
    (AAAS, 2017) Ma, Hongbo; Nittrouer, Jeffrey A.; Naito, Kensuke; Fu, Xudong; Zhang, Yuanfeng; Moodie, Andrew J.; Wang, Yuanjian; Wu, Baosheng; Parker, Gary
    Sedimentary dispersal systems with fine-grained beds are common, yet the physics of sediment movement within them remains poorly constrained. We analyze sediment transport data for the best-documented, fine-grained river worldwide, the Huanghe (Yellow River) of China, where sediment flux is underpredicted by an order of magnitude according to well-accepted sediment transport relations. Our theoretical framework, bolstered by field observations, demonstrates that the Huanghe tends toward upper-stage plane bed, yielding minimal form drag, thus markedly enhancing sediment transport efficiency. We present a sediment transport formulation applicable to all river systems with silt to coarse-sand beds. This formulation demonstrates a remarkably sensitive dependence on grain size within a certain narrow range and therefore has special relevance to silt-sand fluvial systems, particularly those affected by dams.