A conceptual sediment transport model for arid regions

A conceptual model of an instantaneous unit sediment graph (IUSG) has been developed for sediment transport prediction in the arid regions. It involved routing of the sediment through a cascade of identical linear reservoirs. The sediment graphs generated by convolution of IUSG compared well with the observed values for four representative arid sub-basins of the Luni River in India. The sediment supply is related to the effective precipitation and to transmission losses in the upland and channel phases, respectively, and the model parameters are estimated from the observed events. The model can be applied to ungauged flow events through parameterization.