Annual regime of bedforms, roughness and flow resistance, Lillooet River, British Columbia, BC

A field study to examine the statistical character of dune morphology and the correlation among dune morphology, discharge, and flow resistance was conducted in a meandering reach of Lillooet River, near Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada. The field season spanned the 1995/1996 hydrologic year with sample day discharge events ranging between 33 and 425 m3 s−1. Surveys of the bed morphology along the thalweg in two dune fields (A and B) were completed using an echo sounder with chart recorder that enabled the measurement of more than 4000 dunes. Dune height ranged between 0.08 and 0.96 m, length between 2.01 and 20.99 m, and steepness between 0.02 and 0.10. Histograms of each dune shape (height, length, steepness) sample most often displayed positive skewness and non-Gaussian distributions (Gamma, Beta, and Weibull); median sample height and length histograms displayed positive skewness; and steepness was nearly Gaussian. Histograms of all dimensionless dunes (i.e., measurement divided by average measurement of sample) were Gaussian and slightly leptokurtic. Neither the height nor length of dunes measured in this investigation were successfully predicted by the empirical models of Allen [Allen, J.R.L., 1984. Developments in Sedimentology. Sedimentary Structures: Their Character and Physical Basis, 2nd edn. Elsevier, New York, vol. 30 (A and B), 1256 pp.], Fredsøe [J. Hydraul. Div., Am. Soc. Civ. Eng. 108(HY8) (1982) 932.], or Yalin [J. Hydraul. Div., Am. Soc. Civ. Eng. 90(HY5) (1964) 105.]. Least-squares regression models for dune–height relations produced here are similar to models published by other field researchers; regression models for dune length only conform to those developed elsewhere if the discharge of the study rivers was similar. The energy gradient in dune field A varied within a smaller range than in field B, enabling dune size to become more fully equilibrated with respect to flow environment. Although the average Froude numbers were much less than critical, dunes appeared to wash out towards a plane bed as discharge increased due to a change from a bedload to suspended-load dominated sediment-transport regime. Flow resistance increased most rapidly during changes in base flow and at the beginning and end of the seasonal flood; resistance tended to be smaller in field A than B, reflecting local differences in energy gradient. Flow resistance increased until a dune steepness of 0.070 was attained and then decreased. The steepness value was considered to be coincident with kolk generation [Dyer, K.R., 1986. Coastal and Estuarine Sediment Dynamics. Wiley, NY, 342 pp.], suggesting that macroturbulent flow structures play an important role in defining the roughness of dunes on a channel bed.