Data from tracer experiments were compiled and analysed in order to explore the role of geomorphological, hydrological and sedimentological constraints on fluvial gravel transport in gravel‐bed rivers. A large data set from 217 transport episodes of tagged stones were compiled from 33 scientific papers. Our analyses showed that while magnitude of peak discharge is a major control on gravel transport and mobility, tracer travel distances show some scale dependence on the morphological configuration of the channel. Our results also highlight differences in the way tracers are displaced between step–pool and riffle and pool channels. The riffle–pool sequence seems to be a more efficient trap for travelling gravels than the step–pool pair. In addition, in step–pool channels there are clear differences in tracer transport between observations of first displacements after tracer seeding (unconstrained‐stone conditions), and second and subsequent observations of tracer displacements (constrained‐stone conditions). The comparison between tracer experiments under constrained conditions and those under unconstrained conditions also highlights the importance of bed state and structures in gravel mobility. The results of this study confirm that sediment transport in gravel‐bed rivers is a complex process, whereby sedimentological and geomorphological controls are superimposed on the hydraulic forcing. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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A Geographical Information System (GIS) has been applied to shape-fabric analysis and strain measurement. It works in either raster or vectorial format, allows determination of many geometrical features of grains and stores additional descriptive information linked to all these graphic elements. Some new applications for shape characterization and strain measurement have been developed, e.g. the shape parameter S, the Fry method installed as a variant that uses only contiguous grains (TFry method) and a new method (ASPAS method), based on the intersection lengths of the lines of a radial network with the grain boundaries. A compilation of finite-strain estimates on a tectonite sample has been used to compare the results obtained by the new methods. As the shape fabric does not register the full strain history, the strain ratios obtained from the shape-fabric analysis are lower in most cases than those obtained using pretectonic markers.