Suspended sediment, turbidity, and stream water temperature in the Sauk River Basin, western Washington, water years 2012-16

Jaeger, Kristin L.; Curran, Christopher A.; Anderson, Scott; Morris, Scott T.; Moran, Patrick; Reams, Katherine A.

doi:10.3133/sir20175113

Cited by 9 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…MACK, although located in relatively stable terrain and lithology, was formerly glaciated. Such areas often have high sediment yields in the Cascades (Jaeger et al, ). LOOK, the largest watershed, has ample locations for sediment storage that may be remobilized during high‐flow events.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative Influence of Landscape Variables and Discharge on Suspended Sediment Yields in Temperate Mountain Catchments

Bywater‐Reyes

Bladon

Segura

2018

Water Resources Research

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Suspended sediment is an important regulator of stream habitat quality but notoriously difficult to predict and regulate. This difficulty arises because of high natural variability in suspended sediment yield in space and time. Here we quantified associations between suspended sediment yields and discharge, watershed setting (i.e., physiography and lithology), and disturbance history for 10 temperate mountain watersheds (8.5–6,242 ha) in the U.S. Pacific Northwest (H.J. Andrews Long‐Term Ecological Research, LTER) over an ~60‐year period. Annual suspended sediment yields varied almost 4 orders of magnitude across space and time. A linear mixed effects model indicated that much of the variation in yields could be explained by the random effect of site (conditional R2 = 0.74) with additional variation explained by the fixed effects (marginal R2 = 0.67) of cumulative annual discharge (p < 0.001) and the variability (standard deviation) of watershed slope (p < 0.001). Two annual sediment yield data points were model outliers, that each occurred within a decade after forest management activities and a large‐magnitude storm event at sites with high variability of catchment slope. Other sites had low sediment yields for a range of conditions, including management or flood disturbance. Taken together, our study shows that watersheds with high slope variability have higher suspended sediment yields and may be more vulnerable to increases in sediment yields following disturbances.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative Influence of Landscape Variables and Discharge on Suspended Sediment Yields in Temperate Mountain Catchments

Bywater‐Reyes

Bladon

Segura

2018

Water Resources Research

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“…Normalized for drainage area, the Suiattle basin contributes about twice as much suspended sediment to the lowland as typical stratovolcano basins in the Pacific Northwest, including those on the west side of Glacier Peak (Czuba et al., 2011; Jaeger et al., 2017). This anomalous sediment load has been attributed to Chocolate Creek (CC) (Jaeger et al., 2017), a small tributary rapidly incising a Holocene volcanic apron of lahar and pyroclastic flow material (Beget, 1982). Large mid‐to late‐20 th century debris flows deposited a >3 m thick, 0.5 km wide fan of unconsolidated volcanic material at the confluence of CC and the Suiattle River (Ford, 1959; Slaughter, 2004).…”

Section: The Suiattle: Downstream Changes In Materials Strength and L...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Large debris flows from CC initiated around 1938 (Slaughter, 2004). Debris flows of varying magnitudes have recurred in the decades since, reported in eyewitness accounts (Richardson, 1968), and documented in historical aerial imagery (Slaughter, 2004) and anomalous suspended sediment spikes at gauges downstream (Jaeger et al., 2017). These recurring events have regularly replenished the deposits of material available for fluvial transport in the channel.…”

Section: The Suiattle: Downstream Changes In Materials Strength and L...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantitative constraints on the large magnitude of sediment contributed by Chocolate, and potentially Dusty Creeks (each <1% of the Suiattle basin area), comes from two recent studies. Using a 5-year record of suspended sediment measurements along the Sauk River and estimates of "background" sediment yields from neighboring basins, Jaeger et al (2017) estimate that 61% of the suspended sediment yield in the Suiattle comes from "pro-glacial point sources" on the eastern flank of Glacier Peak. Further support comes from work on channel-adjacent lahar and glacial terrace bluff erosion (Scott & Collins, 2021) in the Suiattle (lower valley bottom volcanics, shown in Figure 2a).…”

Section: Field Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Out of 10,000 sediment parcels, we assume that 61% enter the Suiattle River at the CC debris fan. This estimate is based on a study of suspended sediment records in the basin (Jaeger et al., 2017). While a bedload‐based estimate of the relative magnitudes of sediment contribution to the channel would be preferable, no such data set exists.…”

Section: A Mixing Model For Downstream Changes In Bed Materials Litho...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Survival of the Strong and Dense: Field Evidence for Rapid, Transport‐Dependent Bed Material Abrasion of Heterogeneous Source Lithology

et al. 2022

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Coarse sediment in transport along a riverbed gradually reduces in size as a result of grain-to-grain collisions (Daubrée, 1879). This process is termed abrasion and represents the combined effects of attrition, the gradual wear of the surface into fine particles, and fragmentation, the loss of larger particles (Attal & Lavé, 2009;Kuenen, 1956). Downstream abrasion is commonly modeled as an exponential decay of either the grain diameter or mass,where M o is the original grain mass, M x is the grain mass at a given distance downstream, x is the downstream transport distance (commonly, in km), and α is a mass loss coefficient (1/km) representing abrasion rate (Sternberg, 1875). α is generally defined for a particular lithology either via laboratory experiments (e.g., Attal &

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Recurrent debris flows and their downstream fate: Geomorphic drivers of an anomalous sediment load, Suiattle River, Washington State, USA

Fordham¹,

Pfeiffer

Bunn

et al. 2023

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Alpine mass wasting events have impacts that extend past their headwater origins, sometimes reaching populated lowlands. Understanding the processes driving these sediment pulses, and how they contribute to basin‐scale sediment fluxes, is important for hazard assessment and aquatic habitat management. The Suiattle River, which drains Glacier Peak stratovolcano in Washington State, is a dominant contributor of suspended sediment in the region. Normalized for drainage area, it supplies more suspended sediment than nearly any other river in the area and more than twice as much as the White Chuck River, which drains the opposite flank of the volcano. Despite its importance to the regional sediment budget, geomorphic processes in the basin have received relatively little attention in the literature. In this study, we build on previous work to explore the magnitude, timing and triggering mechanisms of sediment loading events in the basin. We find that outburst flood‐triggered debris flows from Chocolate Glacier are of widely varying magnitude and coincide with high temperatures in the late summer. Major debris flow activity initiated in the late 1930s, with at least eight valley‐filling debris flows since then. Smaller, more recent debris flows, likely also driven by outburst floods, occur in five of seven years of complete data. In total, the small debris flows and the subsequent autumn flushing events explain ~21% of the ‘anomalous’ sediment load in the basin, while reworking and abrasion of the historic events may explain another ~26%. We speculate that some of the remaining unexplained ‘anomalous’ load could be the result of a feedback between channel lateral instability (originally triggered by the valley‐spanning debris flows) and bluff erosion.

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Suspended sediment, turbidity, and stream water temperature in the Sauk River Basin, western Washington, water years 2012-16

Cited by 9 publications

References 14 publications

Relative Influence of Landscape Variables and Discharge on Suspended Sediment Yields in Temperate Mountain Catchments

Relative Influence of Landscape Variables and Discharge on Suspended Sediment Yields in Temperate Mountain Catchments

Survival of the Strong and Dense: Field Evidence for Rapid, Transport‐Dependent Bed Material Abrasion of Heterogeneous Source Lithology

Recurrent debris flows and their downstream fate: Geomorphic drivers of an anomalous sediment load, Suiattle River, Washington State, USA

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