Remotely Sensed, catchment scale, estimations of flow resistance

Despite a decade of progress in the field of fluvial remote sensing, there are few published works using this new technology to advance and explore fundamental ideas and theories in fluvial geomorphology. This paper will apply remote sensing methods in order to re-visit a classic concept in fluvial geomorphology: flow resistance. Classic flow resistance equations such as those of Strickler and Keulegan typically use channel slope, channel depth or hydraulic radius and some measure channel roughness usually equated to the 50th or 84th percentile of the bed material size distribution. In this classic literature, empirical equations such as power laws are usually calibrated and validated with a maximum of a few hundred data points. In contrast, fluvial remote sensing methods are now capable of delivering millions of high resolution data points in continuous, catchment scale, surveys. On the river Tromie in Scotland, a full dataset or river characteristics is now available. Based on low altitude imagery and NextMap topographic data, this dataset has a continuous sampling of channel width at a resolution of 3cm, of depth and median grain size at a resolution of 1m, and of slope at a resolution of 5m. This entire data set is systematic and continuous for the entire 20km length of the river. When combined with discharge at the time of data acquisition, this new dataset offers the opportunity to re-examine flow resistance equations with a 2-4 orders of magnitude increase in calibration data. This paper will therefore re-examine the classic approaches of Strickler and Keulagan along with other more recent flow resistance equations. Ultimately, accurate predictions of flow resistance from remotely sensed parameters could lead to acceptable predictions of velocity. Such a usage of classic equations to predict velocity could allow lotic habitat models to account for microhabitat velocity at catchment scales without the recourse to advanced and computationally intensive hydraulic models.