DATA-ANALYSIS OF BED CONCENTRATION OF SUSPENDED SEDIMENT

An empirical relation for the bed concentration of suspended sediment c(b) defined at a few grain diameters above the bed is developed. Its derivation is based on the experimental data sets of Guy et al. in 196 6. The values of the near-bed concentration were obtained by first iso lating the suspended load transport from the observed rates of total l oad transport by use of a bed-load formula. The suspended load was the n equated to Einstein's formulation, which allowed the determination o f c(b). The influence of large concentrations of suspended sediment an d of the reference level for c(b) on the calculated values of bed conc entration has been analyzed. The proposed relation compares satisfacto rily to values of near-bed concentration obtained from independent dat a sets. The procedure used to derive c(b) provides a simple method for the calculation of the total transport rate of noncohesive sediment.