Exner equation (${\varphi }_b{\eta }_t=-q_x$)

The Exner equation is local sediment mass conservation expressed in terms of solid volume: accumulation raises the bed and flux divergence lowers it. Here ${\varphi }_b$ is the solid volume fraction of the packed bed and $q$ is solid volume flux per unit width.

A leading fixed-discharge, level-surface approximation to a shallow erodible-bed flow gives perturbation equations $C_x=4U-C$ and $U_t+3\beta U_x=-4U+C$. The displayed Fourier growth rate has negative real part for every nonzero wave number, independently of bedload parameter $\beta$. Bedload changes the propagation speed but not this damping. The zero-wave-number mode is neutral, so absence of growing modes should not be confused with strict asymptotic decay of every spatially uniform perturbation.