A one-day field visit of two alpine gravel-bed rivers located in the Southern French Alps
Séveraisse River
The Séveraisse is a tributary to the Drac River, where an intensive monitoring program of sediment transport and channel morphology has started around 5 years ago.
Sensors and monitoring instruments will be described. Results obtained from acoustic and seismic measurements of bedload transport will be presented.
Participants will have the opportunity to test different bedload sampling techniques such as Helley-Smith (Elwha) and hydrophones.
Drac River
The Upper Drac is a braided river that has been strongly altered by gravel mining. An ambitious stream restoration program started around 10 years ago to stop channel incision. More than 350 000 m3 of gravels have been reinjected in the channel to recreate a braided morphology. The field trip will be the occasion to visit the restored reach and to discuss results from the monitoring of restoration effects on channel morphology.
