Article
Accounting for uncertainty in cumulative sediment transport using Bayesian statistics
Geomorphology
(2012)
Abstract
That sediment transport estimates have large uncertainty is widely acknowledged. When these estimates are used as the basis for a subsequent analysis, such as cumulative sediment loads or budgets, treatment of uncertainty requires careful consideration. The propagation of uncertainty is a problem that has been studied in many other scientific disciplines. In recent years, Bayesian statistical methods have been successfully used to this end in hydrology, ecology, climate science, and other disciplines where uncertainty plays a major role—their applications in sediment transport, however, have been few. Previous work demonstrated how deterministic sediment transport equations can be brought into a probabilistic framework using Bayesian methods. In this paper, we extend this basic model and apply it to sediment transport observations collected on the Snake River in Wyoming, USA. These data were used previously to develop a 50-year sediment budget below Jackson Lake dam. We revisit this example to demonstrate how viewing sediment transport probabilistically can help better characterize the propagation of uncertainty in the calculation of cumulative sediment transport.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2012
Citation Information
Peter Richard Wilcock. "Accounting for uncertainty in cumulative sediment transport using Bayesian statistics" Geomorphology Vol. 175-176 (2012) p. 1 - 13 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter_wilcock/182/