Articles | Volume 13, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-13-1307-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-13-1307-2025
Research article
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18 Dec 2025
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 18 Dec 2025

An extrapolation algorithm for estimating river bed grain size distributions across basins

Jordan T. Gilbert

Cited articles

Abeshu, G. W., Li, H.-Y., Zhu, Z., Tan, Z., and Leung, L. R.: Median bed-material sediment particle size across rivers in the contiguous US, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 929–942, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-929-2022, 2022. 
Blott, S. J., Croft, D. J., Pye, K., Saye, S. E., and Wilson, H. E.: Particle size analysis by laser diffraction, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 232, 63–73, 2004. 
Buffington, J. M., Montgomery, D. R., and Greenberg, H. M.: Basin-scale availability of salmonid spawning gravel as influenced by channel type and hydraulic roughness in mountain catchments, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 61, 2085–2096, 2004. 
Bunte, K. and Abt, S. R.: Sampling frame for improving pebble count accuracy in coarse gravel-bed streams, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 37, 1001–1014, 2001. 
Buscombe, D.: Estimation of grain-size distributions and associated parameters from digital images of sediment, Sedimentary Geology, 210, 1–10, 2008. 
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Editor
Grainsize distributions in rivers are highly variable while difficult to measure over long river reaches or entire river networks. Jordan Gilbert‘s work offers a statistical approach and numerical toolset to spatially estimate grainsize distributions.
Short summary
Characterizing the grain size of river sediments is necessary for estimating sediment transport rates in rivers. In order to understand sediment transport at large spatial scales, grain size information across river basins is needed, but methods for accomplishing this are limited. Here, I introduce a new method for using measurements of grain size in discrete locations to estimate full grain size distributions across entire watersheds.
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