Stochastic modeling of suspended sediment load in alluvial rivers

Methodology

This paper introduces a parsimonious probabilistic model rooted in multivariate probability theory. We utilized Copula theory to model the dependence structure between discharge ($Q$) and suspended sediment load ($SSL$). $$ F_{QS}(q, s) = C(F_Q(q), F_S(s)) $$ This approach allows for predicting sediment transport with remarkable precision by capturing the non-linear tail dependence [cite: 54, 79-80].

Key Results

• Validated on 67 streams across three hydrological regimes in the US[cite: 52].
• Successfully inferred conditional marginal distributions of SSL for given discharge levels.
• Outperformed traditional regression models in accuracy.