Author(s): Marian Muste
Linked Author(s): Marian Muste
Keywords: Coustic instruments; Velocimetry; Sounding; River hydro-morpho dynamics; Hydrometry
Abstract: Starting with the 1980s, the riverine monitoring community experienced a fast-paced growth of acoustic instruments for measurement of velocity and depth in a wide range of river environments. Among the most prominent hydroacoustic instruments of the day are the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and Multibeam Echosounder (MBES). Acoustic-Doppler velocimeters and echosounders are most-often owned and operated by water-related management agencies while they provide two and three dimensional hydro- and morphodynamics datasets that can potentially reveal new insights into the fundamentals of river processes hence open the door to new research opportunities. While not exhaustive, the present paper focuses on these two representatives of the new generation of hydroacoustic instruments as their adoption is steadily increasing for river-related studies. The paper describes the ADCP and MBES underlying characteristics and illustrates their capabilities to represent the multi-dimensional river hydrodynamics and morphology with sample data acquired at various sites.
Year: 2013