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Title: AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN A NORTH AMERICAN SEDIMENT-MONITORING NETWORK 1709

Author
item OSTERKAMP, W. - USGS
item Heilman, Philip - Phil
item GRAY, J. - USGS

Submitted to: Trans American Geophysical Union
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/30/2004
Publication Date: 12/15/2004
Citation: Osterkamp, W.R., Heilman, P., Gray, J.R., 2004. An invitation to participate in a North American sediment-monitoring network. EOS, Trans. Am. Geophysical Union, 85(40):386-388.

Interpretive Summary: Although sediment data are collected across the country for a number of purposes, there is no national sediment data collection network. Sediment data are collected for different reasons in various places, but there is no network design, coordination, database storage or analysis. This paper extends and invitation to participate in such a network, currently informal, in the hopes that sediment researchers will join and contribute their data to allow for a more coordinated approach to sediment data collection. Such a network would provide obvious benefits in terms of sharing expensive-to-collect sediment data.

Technical Abstract: An informal collaboration has been established to encourage the development of a North American network for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of fluvial-sediment data. The principal objective of the network is to define continental-scale gradients of mean yield, variability of loads, particle-size distributions, and natural regimes for suspended and bed sediment released during unstressed to minimally stressed conditions of land use. Extending that goal, a second objective is to identify stream reaches where fluxes of sediment and associated contaminants now are elevated to levels at which water quality and ecological integrity are compromised. Four steps for a sediment network seem necessary. The first is to insert and merge validated data from various files with the digital reach network from the US, Canada, and Mexico. A second step is to summarize available data for each sampling-site/channel-reach pair, identifying those suitable as secondary entries of a network. A third step could be based on these data by constructing a SPARROW model to predict sediment flux and associated error for each selected reach, and to determine where data are inadequate to support these predictions. A final step is to provide access to data, model results, and interpretations by means of a SPARROW-Web system.