| The Texas Water Development Board collected suspended sediment samples across the state of Texas for approximately 60 years. Until this research, no comprehensive analysis of the data had been conducted. This study compiles the suspended sediment data along with corresponding streamflow and rainfall. GIS programs are developed which characterize watersheds corresponding to the sediment gauging stations. The watersheds are characterized according to topography, climate, soils, and land use. All of the data is combined to form several SAS data sets which can subsequently be analyzed using regression.;Annual data for all of the stations across the state are classified temporally and spatially to determine trends in the sediment yield. In general, the suspended sediment load increases with increasing runoff but no correlation exists with rainfall. However, the annual average rainfall can be used to classify the watersheds according to climate, which improves the correlation between sediment load and runoff. The watersheds with no dams have higher sediment loads than watersheds with dams. Dams in the drier parts of Texas reduce the sediment load more than dams in the wetter part of the state. Sediment rating curves are developed separately for each basin in Texas. All but one of the curves fall into a band which varies by about two orders of magnitude.;The study analyzes daily time series data for the Lavaca River near Edna station. USGS data are used to improve the sediment rating curve by the addition of physically related variables and interaction terms. The model can explain an additional 41% of the variability in sediment concentration compared to a simple bivariate regression of sediment load and flow.;The TWDB daily data for the Lavaca River near Edna station are used to quantify temporal trends. There is a high correlation between sediment load and flowrate for the Lavaca River. The correlation can be improved by considering a flow-squared term and by considering seasonal effects. Typically, sediment concentration is the highest during the warmest months. The infrequent high flows carry a large, disproportionate amount of sediment. |
