Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-and-the-environment-and-mathematical-physiology-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2008/a/3/i/solution

The depth is free-surface height minus bed elevation . The first differential equation conserves water volume. Momentum balances local and advective acceleration against the free-surface pressure gradient, mean gravitational bed-slope forcing and the quadratic drag .
The concentration is suspended sediment mass per water volume. Multiplication of its material rate by depth gives the sediment change per bed area. Settling at speed removes mass at rate , while entrainment supplies ; increasing equilibrium concentration represents stronger erosive capacity at greater speed. The same exchange changes the bed mass per area, whose solid volume fraction is and grain density is . Hence net suspended gain equals : erosion lowers the bed and deposition raises it.
One derives these balances by depth integration with hydrostatic pressure and a sectionally averaged velocity, followed by closures for drag and sediment entrainment/settling. The model neglects additional bedload transport and uses the dilute-suspension approximation to keep the water-volume balance independent of sediment volume.

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