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Sediment Load Calculator

Work out sediment load instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Sediment Load Calculator

Suspended load is discharge times concentration: 14 m3/s at 250 mg/L moves 3.5 kg a second, 302 tonnes a day and about 110,000 tonnes a year. Because concentration rises steeply during floods, most of the annual load is usually carried in a handful of high-flow days, so mean values badly understate event transport.

Formulas

Transport rate

load(kg/s) = discharge(m3/s) x concentration(mg/L) / 1000

Period load

tonnes = rate x seconds / 1000

Worked example

With the default values below, Sediment Load Calculator returns Sediment Load Over The Period of 110,376.0. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

River dischargeminimum 0 m3/s
14 m3/s
Suspended sediment concentrationminimum 0 mg/L
250 mg/L
Periodminimum 0 days
365 days

Results

Sediment Load Over The Period
110,376.0 t
Transport Rate
3.5000 kg/s
Daily Load
302.40 t/day
Annualised Load
110,452 t/yr

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Transport rate
  3. 3Period load
  4. 4Sediment Load Over The Period= 110,376.0 t
  5. 5Transport Rate= 3.5000 kg/s
  6. 6Daily Load= 302.40 t/day
  7. 7Annualised Load= 110,452 t/yr

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 3 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation or tax into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 4 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do a few days dominate the annual load?

Because both discharge and concentration peak together in storms, so transport scales far faster than flow - often as a power of two or three.

Does this include bed load?

No. Bed load - material rolling along the bottom - typically adds another 5-20% and needs separate measurement.

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