HR: 1330h
AN: H42C-1098    [PDF]
TI: Modeling the Erosion Process in Beaded Streams in a Semi-arid Bajada, Southern New Mexico
AU: * Gao, P
EM: pgao@ucdavis.edu
AF: Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, 113 Veihmeyer Hall, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 United States
AB: A channel network in Southern New Mexico falls in one of the three categories: splay, bead, and braid. A splay simply refers to diverging channels. A bead refers to channel reaches in which flow first diverges to form an area of multiple flow paths and then converges to form a single channel. A braid is intermediate between a splay and a bead. Recent studies have demonstrated that beads, which widely exist in the semi-arid environment of Southern New Mexico, serve as sinks to attract more water, nutrients, and sediment than other areas. Thus beads provide a physical base for ecological remediation means to reverse the desertification process. However, the mechanisms for the formation of a bead and geomorphologic factors controlling the properties of a bead are still poorly understood. Given the difficulties of physically tracking and quantitatively estimating the development of a bead in the field, a computer simulation is adopted to model the erosion process that leads to the beaded streams. The modeling is based on a FORTRAN algorithm in which the bajada surface is represented by a matrix of square cells. On each cell, both sediment transport and continuity equations, which are sufficient to describe the erosion process, are applied to determine whether the cell is degraded (erosion), aggraded (deposition), or graded (equilibrium). With a rule of determining the distribution of flow rate from a cell to its downstream neighbors, channels are automatically formed by the erosion processes. The simulation indicates (1) that a bead is formed with the combination of three factors: uneven distribution of flow rate, infiltration, and the degree of distribution, (2) that a bead, once formed, is stable, (3) that the size and shape of a bead are controlled by the discharge-infiltration ratio.
DE: 1815 Erosion and sedimentation
DE: 1824 Geomorphology (1625)
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting