page_title: Sediment transport
section_title: Mechanisms
hierarchical_section_title: Sediment transport / Mechanisms
caption_attribution_description: English: Toklat River, East Fork, Polychrome overlook, Denali National Park, Alaska. – "The river here was a wide bed of gravel with several channels where the water flows. Sometimes the water switches between channels but I'm surprised that there are no grasses growing in the (temporarily) dry parts. I guess there are no quick growing plants of that type in this climate."
context_page_description: Sediment transport is the movement of solid particles, typically due to a combination of gravity acting on the sediment, and/or the movement of the fluid in which the sediment is entrained. Sediment transport occurs in natural systems where the particles are clastic rocks, mud, or clay; the fluid is air, water, or ice; and the force of gravity acts to move the particles along the sloping surface on which they are resting. Sediment transport due to fluid motion occurs in rivers, oceans, lakes, seas, and other bodies of water due to currents and tides. Transport is also caused by glaciers as they flow, and on terrestrial surfaces under the influence of wind. Sediment transport due only to gravity can occur on sloping surfaces in general, including hillslopes, scarps, cliffs, and the continental shelf—continental slope boundary.
  Sediment transport is important in the fields of sedimentary geology, geomorphology, civil engineering and environmental engineering. Knowledge of sediment transport is most often used to determine whether erosion or deposition will occur, the magnitude of this erosion or deposition, and the time and distance over which it will occur.
caption: Toklat River, East Fork, Polychrome overlook, Denali National Park, Alaska. This river, like other braided streams, rapidly changes the positions of its channels through processes of erosion, sediment transport, and deposition.
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