Numerical calculation of flow and sediment transport in rivers

The calculation of flow and sediment transport is one of the most important tasks in river engineering. The task is particularly difficult because of the many complex and interacting physical phenomena which need to be accounted for realistically in a model that has predictive power. Both 2D depth-average and 3D models were developed and tested in the author's group over the years which allow the calculation of flow both suspended and bed-load sediment transport and the associated bed deformation for natural rivers. These two model types and their interrelation are described with their components such as the hydrodynamic model including the turbulence model, bed-load and suspended-load model and the numerical procedures for solving the model equations. Applications of the models to a classical laboratory situation and to stretches of the rivers Rhine and Elbe and the Three Gorges Reservoir Project in the Yantze River are presented and compared with experiments whenever possible.