Sediment yield and spurious correlation-toward a better portrayal of the annual suspendend-sediment load of rivers

Geomorphology
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Abstract

Bivariate relations between annual sediment yield (tons per year per unit drainage area) and drainage-basin area are spurious because drainage-basin area is common to both axes. Two alternative methods for portraying the annual suspended-sediment load of a river are suggested. One method consists of plotting suspended-sediment load (tons per year) against distance downstream. Such plots indicate that annual suspended-sediment load does not necessarily have a linear relationship with distance. The second method consists of plotting annual suspended-sediment load against drainage-basin area. Both methods more accurately portray fundamental relations between annual sediment load and drainage-basin characteristics than does the yield-area relation because spurious correlation is avoided. Plots were made of annual suspended-sediment load versus time for several stations along each of eight rivers for the 10–15 years of available data. The plots are in-phase with respect to relative magnitude of annual sediment loads.




Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Sediment yield and spurious correlation-toward a better portrayal of the annual suspendend-sediment load of rivers
Series title Geomorphology
DOI 10.1016/0169-555X(88)90003-7
Volume 1
Issue 4
Year Published 1988
Language English
Publisher Elsevier
Description 8 p.
First page 309
Last page 316
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