GRUPO 3 Carga de Fondo

Flash-ood and bedload dynamics of desert
gravel-bed streams
Ian Reid,
1+
Jonathan B. Laronne
2
and D. Mark Powell
3
1
Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK
2
Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel
3
Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Abstract:
Comparatively little is known about the hydrology of desert ash-oods despite the extent of the world's
drylands. There is even less known about their sedimentary behaviour and particularly about the movement of
coarse material as bedload. The results of an intense eld monitoring programme carried out on an ephemeral
gravel-bed stream in the northern Negev Desert are presented. In this semi-arid setting, ow duration analysis
indicates that the channel is hydrologically active for 2% of the time, or about seven days per year, and that
overbank ow can be expected for only 0
.
03% of the time about three hours per year. Multipeaked ood
hydrographs are the norm, reecting many factors including the arrival of separate slugs of discharge from
contributing subcatchments. The passage of the initial ood bore is surprisingly slow, but the rising limb of the
ood hydrograph is rapid with a median time of rise of 10 minutes, in keeping with expected ash-ood
behaviour. Bedload ux is high, averaging 267 kg s
1
m
1
during the period that the channel carries ow.
This gives very high bedload sediment yield despite the infrequent and short duration of ood ows and
matches the high yield of suspended sediment. The relationship between bedload ux and boundary shear stress
is simple, in contrast with perennial gravel-bed streams, and the exponent of the loglog relationship is 1
.
52. Of
great value is that the behaviour of the Nahal Eshtemoa corroborates a pattern established by the authors
previously in a smaller tributary stream. #1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEY WORDS arid-zone; bedload sediment; ash-ood; gravel-bed stream; sediment yield
INTRODUCTION
Tropical and subtropical drylands constitute just under 40% of the world's land surface. Within this
substantial area, rainfall runo is both spasmodic and sporadic while in the hyper-arid core regions, it is
virtually non-existent (Renard and Keppel, 1966; Reid and Frostick, 1997). Not surprisingly, in circum-
stances such as these, there has been a reluctance to invest in gauging structures and the information base is
far short of that available for humid environments. This provides a number of interesting problems for
hydrologists anxious to answer questions relating to ood magnitude and frequency that are posed by
engineers and geomorphologists engaged in predicting channel stability and sedimentation (Chang, 1994).
But it also means that desert streams regularly continue to take human life despite the fact that they are non-
functional for most of the time (Hjalmarson, 1984).
The spasmodic nature of events in a typical record has encouraged a broader, regional approach to the
determination of hydrological parameters. In one case, the data from gauged drainage basins that are
dispersed within large geographical areas have been amalgamated to estimate the magnitude of ood ows
CCC 08856087/98/04054315$1750
Received 6 February 1997
#1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Revised 21 April 1997
Accepted 2 May 1997
Hydrological Processes
Hydrol. Process. 12, 543557 (1998)
+
Correspondence to: Ian Reid.
Contract grant sponsor: NERC, Israel Hydrological Service, Ben Gurion University.
as a function of drainage area (Farquarson et al., 1992). However, this type of approach inevitably provides
less emphasis on improving understanding of the hydrological processes that operate.
Despite the general reluctance to install monitoring instruments as part of national gauging programmes,
an increasing amount of information about rainfall and runo has been generated by research conducted
in small and medium-sized catchments (Renard and Keppel, 1966; Schick, 1973a; Sharon, 1972; Reid and
Frostick, 1987; Wheater et al., 1991). This has allowed hydrologists insight into the workings of dryland
systems and the ways in which these dier from those of humid environments.
The comparative paucity of information about rainfall runo relationships in drylands is more than
matched by the dearth of information about sediment transport (Walling and Kleo, 1979). Despite this, what
emerges is a pattern of high suspended sediment yield that conrms the ranking of drylands as ecient
erosional systems, at least as far as ne sediment is concerned (Langbein and Schumm, 1958).
Much less is known about the transport of coarser material as bedload, despite speculation about its
greater signicance in dryland river courses (Schumm, 1968). The obstacles to acquiring data involve the
same notional costbenet analysis as that associated with ow gauging and revolve around the infrequency
of events and the expense of installing xed sampling structures. Nevertheless, there are data that relate to
bedload. These have involved either fractionating reservoir deposits according to grain size and ascribing the
coarser element to delivery as bedload (Schick and Lekach, 1993) or tracing the displacement of individual
tagged clasts by ood ows within the river channel (Hassan, 1990b). Both methods provide invaluable
information. However, the relationship between transport and hydraulics is usually vague, e.g. downstream
displacement may be contextualized only by a representative hydraulic parameter such as peak ood ow.
In contrast, Laronne and Reid (1993) provide a direct link between bedload sediment transport and
contemporary hydraulics. In this case, the deployment of a xed sampling installation indicates both very
high transport rates and a reasonably simple relationship with ow. But although this record is valuable, it is
singular. Considerable benet would derive from comparison with other ephemeral streams of similar
general character. This is now possible. What follows is an analysis of the four-year record of ow and
bedload discharge in the Nahal Eshtemoa, a gravel-bed ephemeral stream of the northern Negev Desert.
CATCHMENT AND RIVER CHANNEL CHARACTERISTICS
The Nahal Eshtemoa drains a catchment of 119 km
2
that lies on the southern ank of the Hebron Hills
(Figure 1). The river valley is typical of the northern Negev Desert and is reasonably well incised in the
landscape, with steep side slopes that often include free faces. The country rock consists of Cretaceous
limestones and cherts, but Holocene loess forms a cloak of variable thickness, being best preserved in valley
bottoms towards the southern end of the drainage basin, where the channel passes into the synclinal Beer
Sheva Depression. Over the major part of the catchment, soils are thin and stony and there are extensive
areas of bare rock.
Rainfall averages 220350 mm yr
1
and occurs mainly in winter, either as convectively enhanced frontal
systems originating from the west, or, unusually but signicantly, as monsoonal incursions from the Red Sea
to the south. In both cases, storms are often cellular and follow discrete tracks. As a result, the pattern of
rainfall can be extremely patchy (cf. Renard and Keppel, 1966; Sharon, 1972; Wheater et al., 1991), aecting
only a fraction of the catchment. There are times, however, when frontal rain is widespread, prolonged and
of relatively low intensity. Within this regime, the number of rain events per year that produce runo ranges
from zero to perhaps 10, with an average expectation of 56.
Set against the rainfall is a potential evaporation of 2000 mm yr
1
. This produces large soil moisture
decits which, together with the eect of long occupancy by both nomadic and sedentary peoples and their
grazing animals, leaves a landscape that is only sparsely vegetated with thorny shrubs and seasonal grasses
and herbs. Lack of signicant canopy interception and the low inltration capacity of the bare crusted soils
produce a rapid rainfall runo response that has been observed to produce overland ow within minutes of
the onset of rainfall.
#1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. HYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, VOL. 12, 543557 (1998)
544 I. REID, J. B. LARONNE AND D. M. POWELL
This responsive system maintains a well-dened network of single-thread, ephemeral channels. At the site
of the monitoring station, the Eshtemoa has a width of 6 m and is incised into its oodplain by 1
.
2 m
(Figure 2). Like other streams of the region, it has an alluvial gravel bed. This ranges in character from
cobblepebble (sometimes with boulders) to pebblegranule, both containing an interstitial matrix of ner
material. These two bed material types alternate in a stream-wise direction, the coarser forming channel-
wide bars and the ner forming longer àts' in a fashion that is analogous to the riepool system of
perennial gravel-bed rivers (Laronne et al., 1994). There is an absence of armour development (in contrast
with perennial streams). It has been suggested that this reects the abundant supply of material from the
sparsely vegetated catchment and the replenishment of ner grain sizes that tend to be transported
preferentially from the stream bed. In the channel at that constitutes the approach reach of the sediment
monitoring station, the median size (D
50
) of the surface layer is 16 mm.
METHODS
The monitoring station consists of two interrelated elements (Figure 2). Water stage is measured by a
pressure transmitter at seven and four locations some 2030 m apart on the left and right banks, respectively
Figure 1. Index maps showing the location of the Nahal Eshtemoa and its left-bank tributary, the Nahal Yatir. The dashed lines are
interpolated isohyets of mean annual rainfall
FLASH-FLOOD AND BEDLOAD DYNAMICS 545
(Figure 2). The number of stage sensors is designed to determine any dierences and changes in longitudinal
and cross-channel water surface slope that result either from bed roughness and bedform or from the passage
of the ood wave. Indeed, longitudinal water surface slope varies systematically with stage, and contemp-
orary values are used in preference to a constant value when calculating channel average shear stress as the
product of water depth and slope. Water discharge is derived for depths up to bank-full from a stage
discharge rating curve for which discharge is calculated using depth-corrected, oat-derived values of water
velocity. [The use of current meters has proved impossible except towards the end of the ow recession
because of the amount of otsam that is characteristically carried by dryland ash-oods (Reid and Frostick,
1987) and because of the rapidity with which water stage changes (Reid et al., 1994).] The values of mean
velocity derived using oat data have been corroborated by those calculated with a resistance equation (Hey,
1979). There has been no attempt to extend the rating curve beyond bank-full because of the uncertain eects
of variable boundary roughness as the water spreads over the oodplain.
Data for sediment transport are derived automatically. The concentration of suspended sediment is
determined for samples obtained at discrete intervals ranging from one to 60 minutes using a programmed
pump sampler, the intake nozzle of which is set at a xed height of 0
.
15 m above the bed surface and at the
centre-line of the channel. The discharge of suspended sediment is then calculated using a rating curve
approach (Powell et al., 1996). Bedload ux is established with ve independently operating Birkbeck-type
pit samplers (Reid et al., 1980; Laronne et al., 1992), the slots of which are located across the channel at 0
.
4
and 0
.
7 of each hemiwidth, as well as at the channel centre-line. Various considerations such as sampler
performance and high transport rate have led to the adoption of a sampling period of one minute from a
record that is virtually continuous.
THE CHARACTER OF FLASH-FLOODS
Multipeaked ood hydrographs and the drainage net
In common with rivers in other desert regions (e.g. Leopold et al., 1966), ood events in the Eshtemoa are
rain fed and discrete. As soon as overland ow has moved into and through the channel network, the channel
bed dries and there is no sustained discharge arising from either interow or baseow. Indeed, the four-year
Figure 2. View upstream through the Eshtemoa sediment monitoring station. The ve Birkbeck-type bedload slot-samplers lie across
the stream opposite the lowest left-bank stilling well (foreground); the suspended sediment sampler intake nozzle lies just downstream;
other stilling wells can be seen upstream set into both left and right banks
record of the Eshtemoa indicates that oods passing the gauging station occupy 2% of time (about seven
days per year) and that the river is entirely inactive for the remaining time.
The number of ash-oods ranges from two to seven per year (Figure 3). The single-peaked, relatively
simple hydrographs that have often been used previously to illustrate patterns of runo in dryland streams
(Schick, 1970; Lane et al., 1971) do occur. An example is the event of 15 February 1995 (Figure 3), which was
observed to have arisen from a discrete convective storm. However, the record deliberately produced here
in its entirety shows that multipeaked hydrographs are more characteristic. This results from a complex
permutation of factors. The peculiarities of convective rainstorms and their relationship with the drainage
basin mean that the likelihood of experiencing the same temporal pattern of delivery throughout the
catchment is low (Sharon, 1972; Wheater et al., 1991). This combines with the rapid runo response to
rainfall, largely unmoderated by interception and inltration, and a direct coupling of hillslopes with the
local channel to provide an ever-changing pattern of stream ow contributions from the sub-basins of the
water catchment. The result is the spiky nature of the trunk stream hydrograph (Figure 3), a feature that has
been noted in other dryland streams (Frostick et al., 1983; Schick, 1988).
The complex and changing combination of factors leading to runo makes an analysis of the eects of the
channel network on the stream hydrograph problematic in the absence of a dense pattern of autographic rain
and stream gauges. However, it is possible to provide some speculative links by separating the major stage
rises of complex events (attributing these to the multicell nature of storms) and simply counting the
individual peaks in each of these, as well as those of simple events. The mean number of peaks per major
hydrograph rise is three. An examination of the channel network (Figure 1) indicates three signicant sub-
basins, one south of the town of Eshtemoa (Samoa) with a centroid that is 14 km above the monitoring
Figure 3. The four-year (19911995) hydrograph of Nahal Eshtemoa. The 11 November 1993 record is truncated at the point that the
data logger was removed for safety; recession ows below 0
.
05 m are not shown. Ticks along the time axis denote two-hour intervals
station, and two upstream of the town with centroids at 20 and 23 km, respectively. This coincidence is
intriguing but the analysis cannot be taken further. Without upstream gauging, it is impossible to investigate
the implications of factors such as ood-wave celerity on the arrival time of individual inputs from sub-
catchments (cf. Ben-Zvi et al., 1991). However, the coincidence seems to suggest that the channel network
alone might explain much of the hydrograph spikiness, the rest being attributable to other factors, including
the number of convective cells impinging on the catchment, the direction of movement of the storm cell(s),
the number of sub-basins both receiving rainfall and contributing runo and the amalgamation of ood
waves from sub-basins as they progress downstream.
Runorainfall ratio
Runorainfall ratios have value in evaluating water resource scenarios, especially where the intra- and
inter-year incidence of rainfall is unpredictable, as here in semi-desert regions. Reliance on a single point
gauge for estimates of rainfall suggests a need for extreme caution when interpreting the results. There is
also uncertainty about the variability of transmission losses to the channel bed from one event to the next
(cf. Walters, 1990; Sharma and Murthy, 1995), although recent experimental evidence from elsewhere in
the Negev suggests that the magnitude of such losses may not be as great as has been assumed previously
(A. P. Schick, personal communication). Nevertheless, the paucity of runorainfall information for arid
regions and its potential value in assessing water resource prompts an analysis.
Rainfall is measured locally within the Yatir Forest by the Israel Meteorological Service (Figure 1). The
record is incomplete. However, it allows the calculation of runorainfall ratios for 10 storms during the
period 19911995. Values range from 0
.
07 to 0
.
4, but there is clustering around a mean of 0
.
2. A comparison
with hillslope studies that have been conducted elsewhere in the Negev is interesting. There is, of course, a
need to recognize the problems of comparing data derived at dierent scales. In addition, runorainfall
ratios have been shown to vary widely for a single event in adjacent plots. So, for a site near Sde Boker, Yair
et al. (1978) give values as wide ranging as 0
.
02 and 0
.
18 for an unusually large storm. Nevertheless, it is
worth noting the results reported for the renovated ancient Nabbatean water-harvesting plots of Advat,
south of Beer Sheva. Here, the runorainfall ratio decreases with increasing slope, but ranges between 0
.
14
and 0
.
27 [Evanari et al., 1968 (unpublished), reported in Yair and Klein, 1973]. These values are similar in
magnitude to those derived for the Eshtemoa catchment and may be indicative of the level of water yield to
be expected storm by storm in the northern Negev.
The ood bore
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of a ash-ood is the bore as it moves forward over the dry channel
bed (Figure 4). The sight is even more remarkable if there has been no rainfall in the immediate vicinity. In
gravel-bed streams such as the Eshtemoa, the sound of gravel clasts being thrown against each other is
distinctly audible from 100 m or so. Where fallen trees are swept up by the advancing water, others have
reported hearing an approaching bore from a far greater distance (Kamoya Kimeu, personal communica-
tion).
Perhaps as interesting is the comparatively sedate pace of those bores that have been measured. Hassan
(1990a) has reported velocities of less than 1 m s
1
in other Judean streams and a clear dependency of
velocity on bore height. Some Eshtemoa data can be added that conrm the relationship, extending and
slightly steepening Hassan's unconstrained least-squares curve (Figure 5). Although bore velocities on the
Eshtemoa reach 2 m s
1
, typical values appear to be in the range 115 m s
1
. The comparatively slow
nature of a bore's advance is due in large part to the high ow resistance that arises from the roughness of the
gravel bed. This counteracts the very large contemporary values of energy slope (Figure 4).
The rate of advance of the ood bore is much less than the velocity of the ow that prevails within a
minute or so of its passage, e.g. once the ow has reached a depth of 0
.
5 m, mean velocity is 2 m s
1
. This
dierence in bore and post-bore velocity is accommodated by a rapid increase in water depth (Figure 4).
Among 24 individual stage rises extracted from the record (including those that are piggy-backed), the
hydrograph time-of-rise ranges from 2 to 58 minutes. But the median value is 10 minutes, in keeping with
expectations of ash-ood behaviour (Reid and Frostick, 1997). Rates of rise are as high as 024 m min
1
.
In fact, the rate of rise can be shown to vary directly with the increase in water depth that results from the
pulse in ow (Figure 6). About one-fth of any rise can be accounted for in 30 s. This suggests a systematic
shift in hydrograph shape with increasing magnitude of discharge pulse: the larger the rise, the more rapid
the increase in water depth.
Flow duration
The duration of individual oods depends as much as anything else upon the nature of the rainstorm and
the size of the basin. However, given the logistical problems for road transport caused by ash-oods in
Figure 4. (a) Flash-ood bore on the Eshtemoa, 11 November 1993. (b) Hydrograph of 11 November 1993 showing rapid increase in
depth of ow and the variation in water surface slope with passage of the ood wave
many of the world's drylands, it may be of value to note that the range established so far for a basin the size
of the Eshtemoa is from less than one-half to just over four days.
Taking the record as a whole, it is possible to produce a ow duration curve (Figure 7). There is, of course,
a need to acknowledge the problems of representativity that arise from so short a return period, especially in
a type-environment where spatiotemporal hydrological patterns are so ckle. However, the rarity of this kind
of information in semi-arid zones gives some justication for the analysis. From the curve, it can be seen that
Figure 5. The relationship between bore velocity and bore height. Open symbols and the dashed regression line are from Hassan (1990a);
the solid line represents regression of all plotted data, including those from Nahal Eshtemoa
Figure 6. The relationship between maximum rate of ood hydrograph rise and net increase in water depth resulting from initial and
piggy-backed ood pulses, Nahal Eshtemoa
the Eshtemoa carries water for only 2% of the time (about seven days per year) and that it exceeds bank-full
discharge for about 0
.
03 (about 3 hours).
These gures highlight just how infrequent runo events are in semi-arid areas. They also provide food for
thought when considering the frequent reports of loss of life (e.g. Hjalmarson, 1984) and the strategic and
hydrological problems that arise from the movement of sediment by desert ash-oods (Schick, 1973b;
Chang, 1994).
BEDLOAD SEDIMENT TRANSPORT
Bedload sediment ux has already been shown to be high for the Nahal Yatir, a small gravel-bed stream of
the northern Negev (Laronne and Reid, 1993). Indeed, a comparison with data previously established for
perennial counterparts in humid environments indicates a clear supremacy for ephemeral streams which
echoes the pattern already established for the ux of suspended sediment (Reid and Laronne, 1995).
However, this bedload record is unique (Reid et al., 1995). Given the wide variation in transport rates that
has been shown to prevail under similar hydraulic conditions in perennial streams, the question arises as to
whether the performance of a single stream can be taken as representative of gravel-bed ephemeral channels.
This question becomes more intriguing given the dierences in water catchment and channel character
between the Nahal Yatir and the Nahal Eshtemoa: the Eshtemoa has a water catchment that is six times
larger (Figure 1), its channel is twice as wide at the monitoring stations and it has a surface bed material
median grain size 2
.
6 times greater than that of the Yatir.
Bedloadshear stress relation
Bedload ux is plotted as a function of shear stress in Figure 8. The data are derived from the record of
seven oods and both variables are expressed as channel average values. For bedload, each plot point
represents the weighted mean of ve synchronous sampler values, while contemporary shear stress (t) is
derived from rgRS, in which r, uid density, is set at 1022 kg m
3
to allow for the average concentration
of suspended sediment, g is gravitational acceleration, S is contemporary water surface slope and R is the
hydraulic radius.
Figure 7. Flow duration curves based on the Nahal Eshtemoa 19911995 record: solid = standard curve; dashed = flow depth as
percentage of time that the channel is occupied by water
The pattern is simple, with comparatively little scatter. It is reminiscent of that established in the
neighbouring Yatir and contrasts markedly with those associated with a number of perennial gravel-bed
streams (Reid and Laronne, 1995). The least-squares relationship assumes an entrainment threshold of
7 N m
2
. Although this curve provides a reasonable description of the plot, there is a need to justify this
choice of threshold value, if only because it can have a signicant eect on the use of the equation as a
predictive tool, e.g. when calculating bedload sediment yield using a rating curve approach.
The uncertainty surrounding the determination of incipient motion of bedload is notorious but is brought
about here, in part, because the shock arrival of a ash-ood bore makes it impossible to establish reliable
measurements for at least a minute or so in a situation where the onset of bedload transport is almost
immediate. This contrasts with perennial systems where the gentler rise in ow builds on a bed already
covered with water and where the problems are related rather more to the fact that transport rates are usually
marginal and, therefore, dicult to detect. Three events in the record exerted maximum channel average
shear stresses of 79 N m
2
(peak water depths of 0
.
090
.
12 m). On these occasions, the samplers registered
no bedload but there was some signicant movement of sand and granules from patches of the bed that had
been marked with spray paint before each ood, suggesting conditions just approaching incipient motion. If,
in the light of this, a water depth of 0
.
1 m is taken as critical and the local bed slope of 0
.
0075 is used, then
critical shear stress (t
c
) is given as 7 N m
2
. Of interest is that, in using D
50
= 0016 m as representative of
the bed material in the approach reach of the monitoring station, the dimensionless critical shear stress,
t
+
c
= t
c
=(r
s
r)gD
50
= 003, in which r
s
is the density of the bed material and is set at 2650 kg m
3
. This
value of dimensionless critical shear stress has been rearmed by Andrews (1994) as probably the most
appropriate for describing incipient motion in gravel-bed streams. It is likely to be at the lower end of a
Figure 8. Channel average bedload ux as a function of contemporary channel average bed shear stress, Nahal Eshtemoa. The curve is
i
b
= 0027(t 7)
152
. Zero transport rates plotted as 001 kg m
1
s
1
(small) range that could be described as critical in the Eshtemoa. So, for another event (25 January 1994)
during which ow was fairly steady at a depth of 0
.
15 m [t
+
= 0042, a value lower than that of Shields
(1936) or Shields-modied (Miller et al., 1977)], the samplers had registered an accumulation of bedload, but
only of ne granules.
Having justied the choice of a transport threshold, it is possible to return to the generalized relationship
between bedload ux (i
b
) and shear stress (Figure 8). The equation becomes i
b
= 0027(t 7)
152
, when
adjusted to eliminate bias introduced by linearized loglog calculations. The exponent has 95% condence
limits of 1
.
42 and 1
.
62 and is almost exactly the value derived for graded gravels in controlled ume
experiments (e.g. Meyer-Peter and Mu ller, 1948).
The comparatively simple bedload response of the Eshtemoa can be seen in Figure 9. Here, the channel
average bedload ux rises and falls in sympathy with changes in shear stress. Any apparent divergence of the
generalized bedload trend-line from that for shear stress largely reects the 3 : 2 relationship between the two
variables. There is a degree of unsteadiness in the bedload curve, but in relative terms, this is not as
exaggerated as has been discovered to be characteristic of perennial gravel-bed streams (e.g. Reid et al., 1985;
Taconni and Billi, 1987), although in absolute terms it should be noted that the uctuations in Eshtemoa are
larger.
Comparison with the neighbouring Nahal Yatir
This simple bedload response is reminiscent of that measured in the neighbouring Nahal Yatir (Laronne
and Reid, 1993). Here, the contrast in behaviour with perennial gravel-bed streams has been attributed to the
ready and abundant supply of material from a catchment that lacks the protection of vegetation. It has been
argued that this replenishment counteracts the tendency of the stream to remove ner clasts preferentially
from the channel bed and discourages the development of a protective surface armour layer (Laronne et al.,
1994). This, in turn, makes bed material readily available and facilitates the high rates of bedload transport
that have been measured. The same seems to be the case in the Eshtemoa. Although an extensive bed
material sampling programme has yet to yield its full results (so that we are, as yet, reluctant to make
Figure 9. Time-series of channel average bedload ux and contemporary channel average shear stress for four ash-oods in the
Nahal Eshtemoa
denitive statements about the vertical structure of this channel), visual observation and limited analyses
suggest neutral grading and the lack of armour development.
The performance of two neighbouring streams begs a direct comparison, especially because bed material
density and clast shape are virtually identical. This can be achieved by allowing for dierences in bed material
clast size and plotting dimensionless bedload ux (i
+
b
= i
b
=r
s
[gD
3
50
(r
s
r)=r]
05
) against contemporary
Figure 10. Dimensionless bedload ux as a function of dimensionless shear stress for the Nahal Eshtemoa (closed symbols) and its left-
bank tributary, the Nahal Yatir (open). The curve represents the data of both streams and is i
+
b
= 421(t
+
003)
137
. Zero transport
rates plotted as 0
.
0001
dimensionless shear stress (Figure 10). In both cases, dimensionless critical shear stress is set at 0
.
03, and
uid density is set at 1040 kg m
3
in the Yatir, reecting a higher average suspended sediment concentra-
tion than that measured in the Eshtemoa. The all-encompassing least-squares relationship becomes
i
+
b
= 421(t
+
003)
137
. An inspection of Figure 10 reveals that, although the plots of the two streams
dovetail extremely well, the Yatir data envelope appears to be steeper. Indeed, the exponent for the Yatir data
alone is 1
.
79, in contrast with a value of 1
.
30 for the Eshtemoa. An explanation for the divergence may lie in
subtle dierences in bedload response from one ood to the next. Each ood contributes a number of points
and these need not extend throughout the full range of shear stress covered by the data envelope of each
stream. In some cases, they sit to one or the other side of what might be perceived as the general trend, thereby
exerting an inuence on any calculated regression. Leaving this remarkably small complication aside, the
combined streams plot provides a very convincing and simple trend, especially when set against the
scatter inherent in the data from perennial gravel-bed streams (Reid and Laronne, 1995). With n = 161, the
correlation coecient is 0
.
96 and the two streams might be considered to show an almost complete family
likeliness in bedload transport behaviour. In eect, the Eshtemoa a much larger stream has corrobo-
rated the pattern previously established for its tributary, the Yatir.
BEDLOAD AND SUSPENDED SEDIMENT YIELD
Any attempt at deriving sediment yields must acknowledge the problems of representativity that arise from
the short-term nature of the sampling period that characterize most datasets. This problem is even more
acute in desert settings where event frequency and magnitude are even more indeterminate than in more
humid environments. Notwithstanding, there is pressing need for estimates of sediment ux in a world where
desertication is causing so much concern for future soil and water resources.
Using a rating curve approach, the average annual yield of bedload in the Eshtemoa is calculated to be
4 641 000 kg or 39 000 kg km
2
(Powell et al., 1996). By accepting that the threshold of bedload transport
equates with a water depth of 0
.
1 m and referring to the ow duration curve (Figure 7), this quantity of
bedload is discharged in about 80 hours, giving an average bedload ux at the monitoring station of
16 kg s
1
or 267 kg s
1
m
1
with channel width taken into account. The second curve given in Figure 7
indicates that bedload is being carried by the stream for about 40% of the period the channel is
hydrologically active. Only 2% of this period involves ows at or above bank-full.
The yield of suspended sediment is also high, as might be expected for a semi-arid catchment, and the
average output is calculated to be 52 10
7
kg yr
1
, or 433 000 kg km
2
yr
1
. This gives a ratio of bedload
to suspended load of 1: 11, i.e. bedload provides about 8% of the total sediment yield. As a percent-fraction,
bedload contributes less than expected, especially when compared with the only other data available for arid-
zone ephemeral streams (Schick and Lekach, 1993). However, this percent-fraction reects as much as
anything the fact that the yield of suspended sediment is commensurably high. It should not be allowed to
disguise the fact that the yield of bedload is also high. Indeed, the Eshtemoa discharges between 17 and 35
times as much bedload as catchments of similar size in a temperate humid environment (Petit et al., 1996).
With such high rates of delivery, there are signicant water resource management implications where
streams such as the Eshtemoa discharge to impoundment reservoirs. Making the assumptions of 100%
trapping eciency (reasonable in situations such as the Negev where reservoir capacity almost always
exceeds inow) and a deposit dry bulk density of 18 Mg m
3
(allowing a generous porosity of 32%), the
loss of capacity would be 262 m
3
km
2
yr
1
. Without ushing or dredging, this would give a half-life of
about 16 years to a 10
6
m
3
reservoir on the Eshtemoa.
CONCLUSIONS
The Nahal Eshtemoa monitoring station provides signicant insight into the hydrological and hydraulic
processes operating in dryland rivers systems, for which there is a world-wide paucity of information. In its
semi-arid setting, the channel is hydrologically active for only 2% of the time and ood hydrographs are
characteristically spiky, reecting the immediacy of the rainfall runo response in tributary sub-basins and
the rapid and discrete propagation of individual waves down-channel. Although the drainage system is
dormant for 98% of the time, when it becomes active, it transports large quantities of sediment both as
bedload and in suspension, far outstripping the performance of comparable perennial rivers. The bedload
response to the shear stress exerted by the ow is shown to be simple and to corroborate the pattern
previously established for a smaller, neighbouring channel. This engenders condence in the declaration
that ephemeral gravel-bed rivers are sedimentologically more predictable than their perennial counterparts
(Reid et al., 1996).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research has been supported by grants from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK,
the Israel Hydrological Service and Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Rainfall data were provided by the
Israel Meteorological Oce. We are grateful to Lynne Frostick for discussions and other inputs, and to Hai
Cohen, Hemi Sturman and Yitshak Yitshak for assistance in the eld.
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