Water-Worked Gravel Bed: State-of-the-Art Review

Abstract

In a natural gravel-bed stream, the bed that has an organized roughness structure created by the streamflow is called the water-worked gravel bed (WGB). Such a bed is entirely different from that created in a laboratory by depositing and spreading gravels in the experimental flume, called the screeded gravel bed (SGB). In this paper, a review on the state-of-the-art research on WGBs is presented, highlighting the role of water-work in determining the bed topographical structures and the turbulence characteristics in the flow. In doing so, various methods used to analyze the bed topographical structures are described. Besides, the effects of the water-work on the turbulent flow characteristics, such as streamwise velocity, Reynolds and form-induced stresses, conditional turbulent events and secondary currents in WGBs are discussed. Further, the results form WGBs and SGBs are compared critically. The comparative study infers that a WGB exhibits a higher roughness than an SGB. Consequently, the former has a higher magnitude of turbulence parameters than the latter. Finally, as a future scope of research, laboratory experiments should be conducted in WGBs rather than in SGBs to have an appropriate representation of the flow field close to a natural stream.

Double Averaging Analysis Applied to a Large Eddy Simulation of Coupled Turbulent Overlying and Porewater Flow

“…Image reproduced from Padhi et al. (2019). (b) Schematic of flow structure in water column and porewater.…”

Vibration Data Processing for Bedload Monitoring in Underwater Environments

“…Furthermore, bedload transport in rivers can be extrapolated using empirical models such as the one used by Radecki-Pawlik et al [2] for the Mlynne and Lososina Streams (Polish Carpathians). An extensive review on water-worked gravel bed natural evolution can be found in [3].…”

Water-Worked Bedload: Hydrodynamics and Mass Transport

“…It includes nine papers, which can be classified into four categories. The first category is comprised of two review papers from Mrokowska and Rowiński [16] on bedload transport by unsteady flow and Padhi et al [17] on water-worked gravel beds. These papers deliver an excellent background that is useful for understanding and modeling bedload transport under unsteady flow conditions and for the morphological and flow characteristics in water-worked beds.…”