Assessing suspended sediment fluxes with acoustic Doppler current profilers: case study from large rivers in Russia

ABSTRACT

Surrogate measures are becoming increasingly used to measure suspended sediment flux, but only few particular computer techniques of data processing are recently developed. This study demonstrates capabilities of acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) to infer information regarding suspended-sand concentrations in river systems and calculate suspended sediment flux via big data analytics which includes process of analyzing and data mining of measurements based on ADCP signal backscatter intensity data. We present here specific codes done by R language using RStudio software with open-source tidyverse and plotly packages aimed to generate tables containing data of suspended load for cells, verticals and whole cross-section based on backscattering values from 600 kH Teledyne RDInstruments RioGrande WorkHorse ADCP unit, as well perform estimates of morphometric, suspended sediment concentration (SSC) and velocity characteristics of the flow. The developed tools enabled to process large data array consisting of over 56,526,480 geo-referenced values of river depth, streamflow velocity, and backscatter intensity for each river cross-section measured at six case study sites in Russia.

KEYWORDS:

• Big data
• ADCP
• backscatter intensity
• sediment transport

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data processed in this study was derived by authors field work by the ADCP owned by the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Authors consent that all datasets (including video recordings) are open and can be used for research and educational activities. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in public repository and can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1080/20964471.2022.2116834.

Additional information

Funding

The study is done under implementation of Russian Scientific Foundation support (project 21-17-00181). Additionally, field studies at the Selenga River were supported by Russian Fund for Basic Research (project 18-05-60219), field studies at the Lena River – by Russian Scientific Foundation support (project 21-17-00181), field studies at the Moscow River catchment – within Scientific Foundation project 19-77-30004. The analytical experiments were supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russian Federation under the Agreement 075-15-2021-574. Also, this paper has been supported by the Kazan Federal University Strategic Academic Leadership Program.

Notes on contributors

Sergey Chalov

Sergey R. Chalov received his M.S. in Fluvial Processes and Hydrology from the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU) in 2004 and 2007, respectively. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked at the Hydrology Department of the Faculty of Geography, since 2018, as an Associate professor. In October 2021 he defended habilitation thesis on the topic “River sediments and fluvial systems”.

Vsevolod Moreido

Sergey R. Chalov received his M.S. in Fluvial Processes and Hydrology from the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU) in 2004 and 2007, respectively. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked at the Hydrology Department of the Faculty of Geography, since 2018, as an Associate professor. In October 2021 he defended habilitation thesis on the topic “River sediments and fluvial systems”.

Vsevolod M. Moreido received his M.S. in Hydrology from the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU) in 2004 and Ph.D in Hydrology from the Water Problems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences in 2015. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked at the Flood Risk Laboratory of the Water Problems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences as a senior researcher.

Aleksandra S. Chalova received her M.S. and Ph.D in Fluvial Processes and Hydrology from the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU) in 2006 and 2009, respectively. After receiving her Ph.D., she worked at the Laboratory of erosion and channel processes of the Faculty of Geography as a junior researcher.

Victor Ivanov

Victor V. Ivanov received his M.S. in 2022 and now he is a Ph.D student at the Hydrology Department of the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU).

Aleksandra Chalova

Aleksandra S. Chalova received her M.S. and Ph.D in Fluvial Processes and Hydrology from the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU) in 2006 and 2009, respectively. After receiving her Ph.D., she worked at the Laboratory of erosion and channel processes of the Faculty of Geography as a junior researcher.