A stochastic approach for the assessment of suspended sediment concentration at the Upper Rhone River basin, Switzerland

Abstract

This study addresses the link between suspended sediment concentration, precipitation, streamflow, and direct runoff components. This is important since suspended sediment concentration in the streamflow has invaluable importance in the management of the river basin. For this, the daily streamflow time series in five consecutive stations at Upper Rhone River Basin, a relatively large basin in the Alpine region of Switzerland, daily precipitation at one station, and the twice a week suspended sediment concentration records at the most downstream station between January 1981 and October 2020 are used. Initially, the base flow and the direct runoff associated with streamflow time series are obtained using the sliding interval method. Elasticity analyses between streamflow and suspended sediment concentration together with correlation, autocorrelation, partial autocorrelation, stationarity, and homogeneity are examined by the Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Pettitt's tests, respectively. Then, various stochastic scenarios are generated using the autoregressive moving average exogenous method (ARMAX). It is concluded that the precipitation and direct runoff have fewer effects on the suspended sediment concentration at downstream of the river. Hence, the cumulative effect of the glacier or snowmelt and channel erosion may exceed the effect of rain blown washouts on the suspended sediment concentration at the Port du Scex station. It is found that the ARMAX model results are satisfactory and can be suggested for further application.