Introduction to suspended-sediment sampling

Measuring Suspended Sediment

“…This method is rarely feasible. Instead, the SSC in the flow is determined by collecting depth-integrated suspended sediment samples that define the mean water discharge-weighted SSC in the sample vertical, and collecting samples from sufficient verticals to define the water-mean discharge-weighted SSC in the cross section (Edwards and Glysson, 1999;Nolan et al, 2005;. …”

“…A cross-sectional suspended sediment sample obtained by the EWI method requires a sample volume proportional to the amount of flow at each of 10 or more equally spaced verticals in the cross section (Edwards and Glysson, 1999;Nolan et al, 2005;. Equal spacing between EWI verticals across the stream and sampling at an equal transit rate at all verticals yields a cumulative sample volume proportional to the total water discharge.…”

“…The equal-areaincrement method is rarely used in the US. The first two methods are described in the following sections (Edwards and Glysson, 1999;Nolan et al, 2005;). …”

“…The most reliable databases accept only selected data types representing sediment and ancillary variables obtained using a consistent set of protocols. For example, sediment data stored by the USGS as part of the online National Water Information System (U.S. Geological Survey, 2012a) and other databases U.S. Geological Survey, 2012b) are collected by techniques described by the U.S. Geological Survey (1998a), Edwards and Glysson (1999), Nolan et al (2005), and Gray et al (2008); analyzed in a USGS-approved laboratory by techniques described by Guy (1969), Matthes et al (1992), Knott et al (1992Knott et al ( , 1993, and U.S. Geological Survey (1999) with laboratory quality assurance verified by U.S. Geological Survey (1998b).Glysson (1989a) divided dataset requirements for computing sediment transport using the more common sediment transport equations for noncohesive sediments into three categories: sediment, hydraulic, and others. Table 1 summarizes and expands on those requirements.…”

“…Author's personal copy (Davis, 2005; Edwards and Glysson,1999;Nolan et al, 2005;, which debuted in the mid-twentieth century, are grounded on sound physical and statistical principles and form the basis for production of most fluvial suspended sediment data in the US and in many other countries on every continent other than Antarctica. More information on a broader suite of traditional technologies can be found by perusing the following publications: Manual Sediment Transport Measurements in Rivers, Estuaries, and Coastal Seas (van Rijn, 2007) and Methods for Measurement of Suspended Sediment (ISO, 2002).…”