Biron, P.M. and Lane, S.N. and Roy, A.G. and Bradbrook, K.F. and Richards, K.S. (1998)

Sensitivity of bed shear stress estimated from vertical velocity profiles: the problem of sampling resolution

Article
Cite key
Biron1998
Language
en
Journal
Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
Volume
23
Pages
133-139
URL
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-9837(199802)23:2%3C133::AID-ESP824%3E3.0.CO;2-N/pdf
Description
Bed shear stress in open channel flows is often estimated from the logarithmic vertical velocity profile. However, most measuring devices used in the field do not allow for flow velocity to be measured very close to the bed. The lack of near-bed measurements is a critical loss of information which may affect bed shear stress estimates. Detailed velocity profiles obtained from a field acoustic Doppler velocimeter over three different bed roughnesses clearly show that the inclusion of near-bed points is critical for the estimation of bed shear stress in a shallow river environment. Moreover, the results indicate that using the full flow depth instead of the bottom 20 per cent of the profile generates an underestimation of the shear stress when flow is uniform.