RSM River Mechanics Podcast

Dr Alain Recking has quantified gravel bed transport with just about all the tools available to our discipline. In addition to substantial field work- Dr. Recking has done some important and influential flume experiments. We have talked and will talk about hiding and armoring quite a bit in this podcast, because they are difficult ideas, that are hard to measure and simulate, and critical to gravel bed processes. But Dr. Recking’s contributions to this vertical sorting conversation d...

I’ve heard people call Tony the godfather of Sediment Transport Modeling and - as you’ll hear in our conversation - he very well may be the first person to use a computer to answer an engineering scale sediment question. But most people about my age and older, know Tony for developing the first generalized sediment model. He was part of the original team here at the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) where he developed HEC6, a 1D sediment transport model that was industry standard for...

Dr. Astrid Blom is a professor Civil Engineering & Geosciences at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is perhaps best known for her recent reach and rive scale work, modeling hundreds of kilometers, sometimes for hundreds or thousands of years. These models explore the long-term equilibrium state of river responses to human modifications and the alternate potential futures associated with different climate change scenarios and management practices. Most of her re...

Dr. Marcelo Garcia holds an endowed chair in Hydraulics at the University of Illinois-Urbana – where he has taught for more than thirty years, and runs the remarkable Ven Te Chow hydraulic and sediment laboratory. His award page reads like a who’s-who of the Legends in our field. These include but are not limited to: The Einstein Award, the Rouse Award, and the Yalin lifetime achievement award. And he is a Distinguished member of the American Society of Civil Engine...

We plan to start releasing season three on the first week of the new year. It was a fun and helpful season, which I'm looking forward to releasing. This preview overviews the guests and topics of the season with fun pull quotes from most of the guests. Look for the next episode the first week of January. This series was funded by the Regional Sediment Management (RSM) program. Mike Loretto edited the first three seasons and created the theme music. Tessa Hall is editing most of Se...

In the first two episodes of this season Dr. Annandale and Dr. Morris talked about reservoir sediment management practices all over the world. But examples in the continental US were noticeably absent. Reservoir sediment management in the US has encountered some challenges that have made US agencies slow to adopt these practices. But Dr. Paul Boyd and Dr. John Shelley are involved in more reservoir sediment management initiative in the United States than anyone I know.&nbs...

Dr. George Annandale has been advocating for forward thinking about global water supply for decades...which is more connected to sedimentation processes than you might imagine. In his book, Quenching the Thirst he makes the case that reservoir sedimentation is one of the major challenges to future water supply and managing sediment at new and existing projects is a critical component of sustainable development. Dr. Annandale has worked on multiple projects at various scales both as a co...