A method of using two acoustic Doppler current profilers operating at different frequencies and employed at the same measuring vertical to sample a profile of suspended sediment concentration has been previously applied in the Parana River (Argentina) but has not been validated by direct sediment samples. The present work fills this gap by reporting new field data and comparing them with acoustically inferred sediment concentrations. The agreement between directly measured sediment concentrations and grain sizes with corresponding estimates from an employed backscatter model was found to be good (squared correlation coefficients are 0.9 and 0.8, and mean deviations are 14 and 6%, respectively). The interrelations between flow velocity and suspended sediment concentration at fixed locations and in a moving mode along a river cross-section have been also investigated. Observed events of bed sediment re-suspension were found to be highly correlated with fluctuations of the vertical flow velocity, with a 100-150s quasi-periodicity. The size of re-suspension plumes was increasing from the channel thalweg to the low-submerged bar areas.

The standard experimental methods used for sampling suspended loads in large rivers are usually time consuming, unsafe, rather expensive, and have a limited spatial resolution. Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs), usually applied to measure the flow discharge, may also be used to assess the suspended sediment concentration by analyzing the backscattering acoustic strength. Though important efforts have been dedicated to test this method, results are not as reliable as engineering practices require, especially in large fluvial systems. In this paper, the correlation between the corrected backscatter from a 1,200 kHz ADCP and the suspended concentration from a depthintegrated sampler is presented and discussed. Despite the assumptions required to utilize this method (i.e., monosized grain and homogeneous vertical concentration), the results showed acceptable differences when they were compared with traditional methods. An evaluation of the backscatter and attenuation of sound produced by fine and coarse material is presented. Finally, the total suspended load of bed sediment is assessed using moving-boat ADCP measurements and compared with results from the corresponding standard method. Differences are at most 46%.

Abstract:The use of echo-levels from Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) recordings has become more and more common for estimating suspended bed-material and wash loads in rivers over the last decade. Empirical, semi-empirical and physical-based acoustic methods have been applied in different case studies, which provided relationships between scattering particles features derived from samples (i.e., concentration and grain size) and corresponding backscattering strength and sound attenuation. These methods entail different assumptions regarding sediment heterogeneity in the ensonified volume (e.g., particle size distribution (PSD) and spatial concentration gradient). Our work was to compare acoustic backscatter and attenuation properties of suspended sediments, sampled in the rivers Parana and Danube that represented rather different hydro-sedimentological conditions during the surveys. The Parana represents a large sandy river, characterized through a huge watershed and the typical bimodal PSD of sediment in suspension, while the Danube represents in the investigated reach an exposed sand-gravel bed and clay-silt particles transported in the water column in suspension. Sand and clay-silt concentrations clearly dominate the analyzed backscattering strength in the rivers Parana and Danube, respectively, with an effect of PSD level of sorting in the latter case. This comparison clarifies the extent of assumptions made, eventually advising on the actual possibility of applying certain ADCP methods, depending on the expected concentration gradients and PSD of suspended sediment to be investigated.

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Interdisciplinary research in the fields of ecohydrology and ecogeomorphology is becoming increasingly important as a way to understand how biological and physical processes interact with each other in river systems. The objectives of the current study were 1) to determine changes in invertebrate community due to hydrological stages, 2) to link local physical features [flow configuration, sediment composition and morphological feature) with the ecological structure between and within dissimilar morphological units (meander and confluence), and 3) to determine the existence and the origin of bed hydro‐geomorphic patches, determining their ecological structure. Results were discussed in the frame of prevailing ecological models and concepts. The study site extends over a floodplain area of the large Paraná River (Argentina), including minor and major secondary channels as well as the main channel. Overall results suggested that hydrodynamics was the driving force determining distribution patterns of benthic assemblages in the floodplain. However, while the invertebrates living in minor secondary channels seem to benefit from flooding, this hydrological phase had the opposite effect on organisms from the main and major secondary channels. We also found a clear linkage between physical features and invertebrate ecology, which caused a dissimilar fauna structure between and within the meander and the confluence. Furthermore, several sandy‐patches were recorded in the confluence. These patches were colonized by the particular benthic assemblage recorded in the main channel, supported the view of rivers as patchy discontinua, under uncertain ecological equilibrium.

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Quantifying sediment flux within rivers is a challenge for many disciplines due, mainly, to difficulties inherent to traditional sediment sampling methods. These methods are operationally complex, high cost, and high risk. Additionally, the resulting data provide a low spatial and temporal resolution estimate of the total sediment flux, which has impeded advances in the understanding of the hydro‐geomorphic characteristics of rivers. Acoustic technologies have been recognized as a leading tool for increasing the resolution of sediment data by relating their echo intensity level measurements to suspended sediment. Further effort is required to robustly test and develop these techniques across a wide range of conditions found in natural river systems. This article aims to evaluate the application of acoustic inversion techniques using commercially available, down‐looking acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) in quantifying suspended sediment in a large sand bed river with varying bi‐modal particle size distributions, wash load and suspended‐sand ratios, and water stages. To achieve this objective, suspended sediment was physically sampled along the Paraná River, Argentina, under various hydro‐sedimentological regimes. Two ADCPs emitting different sound frequencies were used to simultaneously profile echo intensity level within the water column. Using the sonar equation, calibrations were determined between suspended‐sand concentrations and acoustic backscatter to solve the inverse problem. The study also analyzed the roles played by each term of the sonar equation, such as ADCP frequency, power supply, instrument constants, and particle size distributions typically found in sand bed rivers, on sediment attenuation and backscatter. Calibrations were successfully developed between corrected backscatter and suspended‐sand concentrations for all sites and ADCP frequencies, resulting in mean suspended‐sand concentration estimates within about 40% of the mean sampled concentrations. Noise values, calculated using the sonar equation and sediment sample characteristics, were fairly constant across evaluations, suggesting that they could be applied to other sand bed rivers. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Burial of particulate organic carbon (POC) in sedimentary basins drives a long-term atmospheric CO 2 sink (e.g., France-Lanord & Derry, 1997) and creates paleoclimate archives (e.g., Hein et al., 2017). However, POC flux to depositional basins, and the paleoclimate conditions recorded therein, can be modulated during source to sink transit, analogous to how fluvial transport modifies environmental signals in clastic deposits (Hajek & Straub, 2017;Jerolmack & Paola, 2010). In lowland rivers, sediment exchange between rivers and floodplains can modify upstream-derived POC (