Significance of grain-scale forces for the morphology of river reaches

This research aims to combine, for the first time, river monitoring techniques that have developed extensively but separately during the last decade.

These are:
a) direct measurements of point scale sediment dynamics;
b) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based topographical surveying and Geomorphic Change Detection (GCD); and,
c) in stream Geomorphic Units (GU) identification.

The resulting dataset will permit, for the first time, the linkage between specific morphological and ecological features with the hydraulic forces that develop on the riverbed. This is a major methodological development since it defines the parameter space for every river management intervention in a direct and quantifiable way.