The Assessment of Sediment Transport Rates by Automated Digital Photogrammetry

Automated DEM acquisition methods are used to generate dense elevation models of a controlled experimental flume used to simulate sediment transport in a braided stream. A Pentax 645 non-metric camera was used to acquire all imagery, and uncertainities concerning the interior orientation of the camera were overcome using a self-calibrating bundle adjustment. The ERDAS IMAGINE OrthoMAX software package was used to derive all DEMs, and derived elevation models were used in a variety of ways to provide data of geomorphological significance. A study of the quality of derived data suggests that reliable estimates of sediment transport can theoretically be derived from the detection of morphological change alone, but it is very difficult to achieve in practice