Peter Wilcock's Reference Documents for Cohesionless Transport

This is a set of references provided by Peter Wilcock, Ph.D. of John Hopkins. 

I. Some Sediment Transport Books

Blench, T., 1966, Mobile-bed Fluviology, T. Blench & Assoc., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Bridge, John S., 2003, Rivers and Floodplains, Blackwell, 491 p.

Chang, H., 1988.  Fluvial processes in river engineering, John Wiley, 432 p.

Engelund, F. and Hansen, E., 1972, A Monograph on Sediment Transport in Alluvial Streams, Teknisk Forlag, Copenhagen. 62p.

The nicest “little book” on sediment transport ever written

Garcia, M.H. (ed.) 2008.  Sedimentation Engineering: Processes, Measurements, Modeling, and Practice, ASCE Manuals and Reports on Engineering Practice No. 110). 

A staggering 3-in monster providing up-to-date information on a wide range of topics.  Alas, like any edited volume, some chapters are far better than others, some are rather narrow and uninspiring, and it does not achieve the consistent and authoritative voice of Vanoni (1975).

Graf, W.H., 1971, Hydraulics of Sediment Transport, McGraw Hill, 513 p.

Graf, W.H., 1998, Fluvial Hydraulics, Wiley, 682 p.

Henderson, F.M., 1966.  Open Channel Flow, Macmillan, 522 p.

The best ever open channel flow book, with a very good chapter on sediment transport on river mechanics.

Middleton, G.V. & Southard, J.B., 1984, Mechanics of Sediment Movement, SEPM Short Course #3, 401 p. 

The most readable account of sediment transport mechanics that will probably ever be written.  See notes below.

Raudkivi, A.J., 1990, Loose Boundary Hydraulics, 3rd ed., Pergamon, 538 p.

van Rign, Leo, 1993, Principles of Sediment Transport in Rivers, Estuaries and Coastal Seas, Aqua Pub., Amsterdam. Hundreds of pp.

A unique, individual attempt to pull together the whole package on sediment transport mechanics.

Vanoni, V.A. (ed.), 1975 (Reissued 2006), Sedimentation Engineering, Am. Society of Civil Engineers, Manuals and Reports on Engineering Practice No. 54, 745 p.

The standard for an edited practice manual.  Authoritative, with surprisingly consistent voice and quality.

Yalin, M.S., 1977, Mechanics of Sediment Transport, 2nd ed., Pergamon, 298 p.

Yalin, M.S., 1991.  River Mechanics, Pergamon, 219 p.

If you are going to be a sediment transport jock, Yalin’s unique view broadens your horizons in useful ways.

II. A sediment transport text?

An abbreviated “text” on sediment transport mechanics would be

à Garcia, Marcelo H. 2008.  Sediment Transport and Morphodynamics, Chapter 2, in Garcia, M.H. (ed.) Sedimentation Engineering: Processes, Measurements, Modeling, and Practice, ASCE Manuals and Reports on Engineering Practice No. 110. 

Parts of this chapter are quite thorough (e.g. 2.8 Drag partition and 2.9 Suspended load), most of the others are quite good, but could use supplementation for a text.  The main missing piece is on coarse mixed-size sediment (see Chapter 3 by Parker) and cohesive sediment (see Chapter 4 by Mehta and McAnally). 

à Middleton and Southard provide a nice counterbalance, giving extensive description to fill out the concise equation-filled treatment of Garcia.  Chs. 1, 3, and 5 of Middleton and Southard discuss essential topics of general fluid flow, turbulence, flow resistance, flow separation, and boundary layer profiles.  (Chapter 5 is excessive, the last 32 pages from 5-27 to 5-59 can be skipped).  Forces on grains and the flow regimes of drag are nicely discussed in pp 1-11 of Ch 2 and pp 1-6 of Ch 4.  Ch. 6 is a very nice description of the mechanisms of incipient motion, bed load, and suspended load. 

III. A few sediment transport papers

Engelund, F., and J. Fredsøe, A sediment transport model for straight alluvial channels, Nordic Hydrology, 7:293-306, 1976.

The nicest, simplest development of the “Bagnold-type” bed load transport relation. {see Garcia (2008) Chapter 2.6 for discussion of Bagnold vs Einstein approaches to bed-load transport}

Fernandez Luque, R., and R. Van Beek, Erosion and transport of bedload sediment, J. Hydraul. Res., 14(2), 127-144, 1976. 

Maybe the nicest and most effective sediment transport experimental study ever.

Garcia, M. and G. Parker, 1991.  Entrainment of bed sediment into suspension, J. Hydr. Eng., 117(4):414-435.

Garcia (2008) Chapter 2.9 is sufficiently complete, but this is where it comes from

Madsen, O.S., Lecture notes on Einstein's bed-load theory, ≈24 p.

One of the simpler explanations of the stochastic approach to transport

Nelson, J., R. Shreve, S. McLean and T. Drake, 1995.  Role of near-bed turbulence structure in bedload transport and bedform mechanics, Water Res. Res. 31(8):2071-2086. 

Helps you think about the role of near-bed turbulence in applying stress to predicting transport.

Parker, G. and A.G. Anderson, 1977.  Basic principles of river hydraulics.  J. Hydr. Div., ASCE, 103(HY9):1077-1087.

A nice, concise explanation of fundamental relations in river hydraulics

Parker, G., 2008, Transport of Gravel and Sediment Mixtures, Ch. 3 in Garcia, M.H. (ed), Sedimentation Engineering: Processes, Measurements, Modeling, and Practice, ASCE Manuals and Reports on Engineering Practice No. 110

The latest and very thorough compendium on mixed-size transport

Parker, G., and Wilcock, P.R., 1993.  Sediment feed and recirculating flumes: a fundamental difference, The Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 119(11):1192-1204. 

To get your head straight on what controls transport and distinguishing between initial and boundary conditions

Wiberg, P.L. and J.D. Smith, A theoretical model for saltating grains in water, J. Geophys. Res. 90(C4):7341-7354, 1985. 

Not the first “theoretical” transport model, but probably the most thorough and nicely written

Wilcock, P.R. and Crowe, J.C., 2003 A surface-based transport model for sand and gravel, J. Hydraulic Engineering. 129(2), 120-128.

The be-all, end-all

Wilcock, P.R., 1998.  Two-fraction model of initial sediment motion in gravel-bed rivers, Science 280:410-412.

Introduces the two-fraction concept