How urban stormwater regimes drive geomorphic degradation of receiving streams

KL Russell; GJ Vietz; TD Fletcher

Journal article

How urban stormwater regimes drive geomorphic degradation of receiving streams

KL Russell, GJ Vietz, TD Fletcher

Progress in Physical Geography | SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD | Published : 2020

DOI: 10.1177/0309133319893927

Download PDF

Abstract

For streams draining urban catchments, sediment transport capacity is the key driver of physical impacts including bed sediment removal and channel incision. The main unanswered question is the relative role of flow alteration compared to sediment supply in influencing sediment transport capacity. With this objective, we computed sand and gravel bed sediment transport capacity using the Wilcock and Kenworthy two-fraction bedload transport relation for nine streams in catchments covering a gradient of urbanisation. Computations were done for typical natural bed surface material, based on conditions in the least urban study streams. We compared transport capacity distributions and cumulative t..

View full abstract

University of Melbourne Researchers

Kathryn Russell Author

Geoff Vietz Author

Tim Fletcher Author

Related Projects (2)

Restoration trajectories of stream ecosystems degraded by urban stormwater runoff: a large-scale experiment in urban hydrology and stream ecology

This project aims to assess innovative dispersed stormwater retention systems in catchments for protection and restoration of urban streams...

Catchment-scale and riparian zone stormwater retention; can it restore stream hydrology?

It will provide a new model for the design of stormwater drainage systems which both protect aquatic ecosystems and reduce the demand for im..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship and the Melbourne Waterway Research Practice Partnership (http://mwrpp.org).Fletcher was supported by the Australian Research Council (FT100100144) during part of this study, and flow monitoring in several of the study catchments was supported by Australian Research Council project LP130100295. The funding sources had no direct involvement in the study.