Speakers
Natalie Memarsadeghi
I am a Research Physical Scientist at the Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (USACE- ERDC- CHL). I am a graduate from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy, focused on marine and coastal management, and an M.S. in Geographical Sciences. In my current position, I focus on large scale hydrologic modeling and post-wildfire flood and debris flow modeling.
Presentation Description
Modeling Suspended Sediment Loads at the Continental Scale: study case, Mississippi River BasinSuspended sediment loads influence several natural and anthropogenic systems such as erosion, navigation, wildlife habitats and river engineering projects. Due to the vast impact that sediment has, there is a need for current and accurate suspended sediment concentration data. Therefore, in this study we present an integrated framework to calculate sediment discharge in every individual stream segment across large river basins, allowing efficient analysis on both small and large spatial scales. We first test this framework on the Ohio River Basin by simulating stream flow at 3-hourly time steps from 1980 to 2014 using the Routing Application for Parallel computatIon of Discharge (RAPID) model. We then calculate sediment concentration through empirical regressions as a function of streamflow considering landcover, hydrologic soil group, and drainage basin area size, utilizing available USGS measurements. This framework is then applied to the entire Mississippi River Basin. In areas where a distributed hydrologic and sediment model cannot be developed due to time or resource limitations, this simpler framework may be sufficient to provide necessary information quickly.