U.S.-U.K. Cooperative Research: Integration of Mathematical Modeling, Physical Modeling and Field Research for Advanced Understanding of River Dynamics

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

0097059 Rhoads This three-year award for cooperative research in geography and regional sciences involves teams in the United States and in the United Kingdom. The US team of Bruce L. Rhoads, Marcelo H. Garcia, Rebecca Wade and their graduate students at the University of Illinois propose to collaborate with Stuart Lane, James Best, Philip Ashworth at the University of Leeds, Robert Ferguson at University of Sheffield, and Keith Richards at Cambridge University along with graduate students from these institutions. The US and UK teams will explore the three-dimensional structure of time-averaged fluid motion and turbulence in natural rivers and develop and empirically test numerical models of river-channel dynamics with functions for sediment transport and bank erosion. Streams and rivers are agents of erosion and depositional change on the Earth's terrestrial surfaces. Despite enormous amounts of research on fluvial forms and processes, there is a theoretical need for predicting quantitatively the behavior of river channels over time and space. The proposed interdisciplinary collaboration addresses this problem through research on and development of a field-tested predictive model. The US and UK research teams are expert on computational fluid dynamics and bring to this collaboration different approaches, detailed measurements of model simulations from their respective laboratories, and expertise in computational modeling and field testing.