Equilibrium sediment flux ($q_{\mathrm{sat}}$)

The equilibrium sediment flux is the transport supported locally by a prescribed bed shear stress. A common idealization is $q_{\mathrm{sat}}={\varphi }_b\chi (\tau -{\tau }_{\mathrm{th}}{)}_{+}^{\gamma }$. Linearization above the sediment entrainment threshold requires perturbations small compared with the positive excess stress.