Abstract

Sediment delivered from water erosion causes substantial waterway damages and water quality degradation. Sediment discharge is a critical pollution source in Saginaw Bay which is identified as the Area of Concern (AOC) in the Great Lakes basin. Controlling sediment loading requires the knowledge of the soil erosion and sedimentation. A number of factors such as drainage area size, basin slope, climate, land use/land cover may affect sediment delivery processes. Accurate prediction of sediment delivery ratio is an important and effective approach to predict sediment yield which is usually not measured. Presently available prediction models are not generally applicable to a particular watershed. Yet little research has been done on the prediction of sediment delivery ratio in the Midwest including Saginaw Bay watershed. The goal of this study is to quantitatively analyze several prediction models and to define a computationally effective suitable model with higher accuracy in Saginaw Bay watershed. Geographic Information System (GIS) is used to determine the values of factors in the models. Monitoring sediment data including those from the US Geological Survey gaging stations are used to validate the models. The methods and approaches used in this study are expected to be applicable to watersheds in other regions.

Introduction

Literature Review

Methods

Results

Discussion and Conclusions

References