DOI: 10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtjdn
title: Data for: Multiscale bedform reorganization at the onset of substantial suspended sediment transport

description: Sand-bedded rivers feature dunes and ripples, collectively referred to as
 bedforms, that regulate flow resistance and sediment fluxes. Recent
 research has demonstrated that in large lowland rivers, bedforms are
 characterized by their multiscale organization; however, the flow and
 sediment transport conditions under which these arrangements are stable
 remain unknown. In this study, we analyzed twelve flume experiments of
 bedform evolution to reveal a previously unrecognized transition in the
 organization of multiscale bedforms. The data herein accompany the
 manuscript “Multiscale bedform reorganization at the onset of substantial
 suspended sediment transport ” by Debsmita Das, Vamsi Ganti, and Robert C.
 Mahon. This dataset consists of bathymetric data from four flume
 experiments of bedform evolution conducted in a 15m-long, 2-m-wide, and
 1-m-deep flume at the Experimental Sedimentology Laboratory, University of
 California, Santa Barbara. This includes a 20-hour-long step-discharge
 experiment, systematically increasing the discharge from 0.28 m3/s to 0.41
 m3/s in ten increments, then decreasing it back to 0.28 m3/s in ten steps.
 The initial and peak discharges represented bedload-dominated and
 suspension-dominated conditions, respectively. We also include three
 steady-state experiments at 0.28 m3/s (baseflow; duration ~6.6 hrs), 0.41
 m3/s (peak-flow; 3 hrs), and 0.37 m3/s (intermediate flow; ~8 hrs) to
 characterize equilibrium bedform dynamics. The vertical and horizontal
 resolution of all experimental data is 1 mm, and the temporal resolution
 of scans is 4 minutes.
description: # Data for: Multiscale bedform reorganization at the onset of substantial
 suspended sediment transport Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtjdn](10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtjdn) ## Description of the
 data and file structure ### Files and variables * UCSB_SS23.zip *
 UCSB_SS30.zip * UCSB_SS33.zip * UCSB_StepDis.zip The data folder consists
 of four zipped folders- UCSB_SS23, UCSB_SS30, UCSB_SS33, UCSB_StepDis.
 Each subfolder consists of bathymetric scans for that experiment as .mat
 files. **Description of the data and file structure for UCSB_SS23,
 UCSB_SS30, UCSB_SS33:** scan.mat This mat file contains
 three variables: * *X* -vector representing coordinates in the
 longitudinal or downstream direction along the study section at 1 mm
 resolution. * *Y* -vector representing coordinates in the lateral or
 cross-stream direction along the study section at 1 mm resolution. * *Z* -
 2-dimensional matrix containing bed elevation scans used for computing
 bedform geometry and kinematics, and the power spectral density of bed
 elevation. Within Z, the first and second dimensions represent bed
 elevation in lateral and longitudinal directions, respectively.
 **Description of the data and file structure for UCSB_StepDis:** This
 folder contains 20 subfolders: * T24R to T33R (10 folders): Each folder
 contains bathymetric scans at that transport stage for the incremental
 phase of the step discharge experiment. * T32F to T23F (10 folders): Each
 folder contains bathymetric scans at each transport stage for the
 decreasing transport stage phase of the step discharge experiment. The
 bathymetric scans in each folder are in the following .mat format:
 scan.mat This mat file contains three variables: *
 *X* -vector representing coordinates in the longitudinal or downstream
 direction along the study section at 1 mm resolution. * *Y* -vector
 representing coordinates in the lateral or cross-stream direction along
 the study section at 1 mm resolution. * *Z* - 2-dimensional matrix
 containing bed elevation scans used for computing bedform geometry and
 kinematics, and the power spectral density of bed elevation. Within Z, the
 first and second dimensions represent bed elevation in lateral and
 longitudinal directions, respectively.