Width-Based Discharge Partitioning in Distributary Networks: How Right We Are

River deltas are home to large populations and can be composed of complex channel networks which convey flows of matter to the shoreline. Knowledge of flow within individual channels is needed to quantify the distribution of discharge across the delta, and thus its sustainability over time. Due to a lack of field measurements at the local channel scale, researchers leverage remote sensing data to estimate the partitioning of flow. We compare data from 15 river deltas to discharge partitioning estimates based on channel network graphs derived from remote sensing imagery. We quantify errors in the common width-based method and test alternative partitioning techniques to find that width-based discharge partitioning is universally applicable, suggesting that absent any site-specific information, discharge partitioning by average channel width is an appropriate approach. We also provide networks, streamflow measurements, and flux partitioning estimates for 28 delta networks as the Discharge In Distributary NeTworks (DIDNT) dataset.

An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright (year) American Geophysical Union [Width‐Based Discharge Partitioning in Distributary Networks: How Right We Are. Geophysical Research Letters 49, 14 (2022)]

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Work Title Width-Based Discharge Partitioning in Distributary Networks: How Right We Are
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Open Access
Creators
  1. Jayaram Hariharan
  2. Anastasia Piliouras
  3. Jon Schwenk
  4. Paola Passalacqua
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Geophysical Research Letters
Publication Date July 28, 2022
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL097897
Deposited November 06, 2022

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  • Added Creator Anastasia Piliouras
  • Added Creator Jon Schwenk
  • Added Creator Paola Passalacqua
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