Sediment Supply Versus Local Hydraulic Controls on Sediment Transport and Storage in the Rio Grande in the Big Bend Region

Abstract:

The Rio Grande in the Big Bend region of Texas, USA, and Chihuahua and Coahuila, Mexico, has a large sediment supply, and a variable hydrology resulting in rapid channel narrowing during years of low mean and peak flow, and channel widening during rare, large-magnitude floods. This dynamic nature makes the Rio Grande a useful natural laboratory to investigate the relative importance of flow strength and sediment supply in controlling channel change. We analyzed a suite of sediment-transport and geomorphic data to determine the cumulative influence of different flood types on changing channel form. In this study, physically-based analyses suggest that channel change on the Rio Grande is controlled by both changes in flow strength and sediment supply over different spatial and temporal scales.

Channel narrowing is primarily caused by sediment supplied to the Rio Grande during flash floods on desert tributaries. Tributary floods have large suspended-sediment concentrations, occur for short durations, and attenuate rapidly downstream in the Rio Grande, depositing much of their sediment in downstream reaches. Long-duration floods on the mainstem are the only floods that have the capacity to enlarge the Rio Grande. These floods, released from upstream dams, can either erode or deposit sediment in the Rio Grande depending upon the antecedent in-channel sediment supply and the magnitude and duration of the flood. Geomorphic and sediment-transport analyses show that sand erosion and deposition during long-duration floods are most strongly controlled by the spatial distribution of flow strength as governed by channel slope. However, temporal changes in the grain size and amount of available sand within the channel, as inferred from comprehensive analyses of suspended-sediment concentration and grain size, control the degree of sediment evacuation or accumulation over large spatial scales.