Geomorphology and Bank Erosion Study of A River in South Texas

Background

Bank erosion along a river in South Texas has damaged or threatened houses, roadways, and public facilities for decades. SDI was contracted by an Engineering company to provide equipment and technology to map the river geomorphology and bank characteristics for a 3.3-mile study area. The collected data was used for providing detailed measurements of erosion and assessing erodibility information. 

SDI DJB-1243 Dual Jon Boat

Survey

The survey equipment was selected to accommodate the shallow water and limited access at the study site. The acoustic bathymetric data was acquired by an SDI SC-200 bathymetric survey system equipped with a DGPS navigation system. Furthur geomorphic characterization of the river banks relied on RTK GPS survey and boat-based mobile laser range survey. The xyz data from different surveys were combined and processed to create the digital elevation model.  

Results

High-resolution bathymetric maps, as well as a digital elevation model, for the 3.3-mile river channel, were generated to perform hydrological modeling in order to assess the erodibility information.  

Equipment Used

RTK Surveying

River bottom elevation contours

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About SDI

For over 30 years, SDI has designed and manufactured bathymetric and sub-bottom survey systems, sediment coring devices, and other specialized survey systems. SDI also provides geospatial, geophysical, hydrographic, sub-bottom, and sediment sampling services.