Sedimentation and erosion processes are strongly associated with the hydraulics of any system, and in water resources management they add another dimension to the complicated process of making decisions.

The processes of erosion, transportation and sedimentation are natural, have occurred throughout geological time and have helped to shape the present landscape of the world. Investigation of river morphodynamic and sediment processes is of interest to scientists and engineers, hence over the years many tools have been developed to model these processes mathematically. Open source software has the benefit of being freely available, and as such accessible to wider audiences, however support for using open source codes can be limited. One such piece of open source software is XBEACH, which was developed and tested to predict the flooding, sediment transport and morphological changes in coastal environments.

Problem

1. Does XBEACH reproduce simple fluvial sediment transport problems that are easily calculated using analytical methods?
2. How does XBEACH (Sediment) compare to other established software in some specific ideal cases for sediment transport in the fluvial environment?

Objectives

The present paper furthers the research by benchmarking the sediment transport modules of the code, testing the validity of applying this freely available software in fluvial environments. Most codes which have the capability to represent sediment transport and morphological considerations are available commercially, hence testing this freely available software will open up the possibility of accessing free 2D sediment transport capabilities for fluvial specialists across the world.

Methodology

A series of six benchmark cases were set up to test the XBEACH sediment transport module in the fluvial environment. The tests were designed to test scenarios specific to the fluvial environment, and of particular interest to river rehabilitation and training requirements.

• Firstly, taking sediment grain size consideration, differences exist between coastal and riverine settings.
• Secondly significant differences exist in flow requirements.
• Finally topography requirements differ in each environment.

Achievement

Publication

“Applicability of a coastal morphodynamic model for fluvial environments”, Environmental Modelling & Software, June 2016

AutoCAD design

Xbeach 2D hydrodynamic and morphodynamic simulation