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Patterns and processes of sediment sorting in gravel-bed rivers

Department of Geography, Leicester University, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

Sedimentological studies of coarse-grained alluvial rivers reveal patterns of bed material sorting at a variety of spatial scales ranging from downstream fining over the length of the long profile to the vertical segregation of a coarse surface layer at the scale of individual particles. This article reviews the mechanisms that sort bed material by size during sediment entrainment, transport and deposition and discusses some of the inter-relationships that exist between patterns and processes of sediment sorting at different spatial and temporal scales. At initiation of motion, sorting can arise from the preferential entrainment of the finer fractions from the heterogeneous bed sediments. Bedload grain-size distributions are modified during transport as different size fractions are routed along different transport pathways under the influence of nonuniform bed topography and associated flow patterns, and during deposition as the variable pocket geometry of the rough bed surface and turbulence intensity of the flow control the size of the particles that deposit. The review highlights the poor understanding of the many feedback linkages that exist between patterns and processes of sediment sorting at different scales and the need for a greater awareness of the spatial and temporal bounds of these linkages.

Key Words: sediment sorting • gravel-bed rivers • fluvial sedimentology • bed material • bedload transport

Progress in Physical Geography, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1-32 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/030913339802200101


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