Peter Wilcock on Gravel Bed Rivers, Partial Transport, Armor Layer Persistence and Channel Design (Plus Wilcock & Crowe)

RSM River Mechanics Podcast

When HEC hired me to add sediment transport to HEC-RAS almost 20 years ago now, I inherited a set of sediment transport functions that were mostly developed in the early to mid 20th century.
These were – and continue to be – important equations.
But when I sat down with the RAS team
To talk about the new science I was excited to include in a river mechanics model.
I pulled out the same binder I brought to this interview
We are wrapping up our third season of the podcast, and our three-part mini series on gravel bed rivers And talking to the scientist who wrote all the papers in that binder, seems like a fitting way to wrap up both.
Dr. Peter Wilcock spent much of his career at Johns’ Hopkins, where he and his team developed the Wilcock and Crowe transport equation and did some of the most important gravel bed transport work that was hitting the journals when I was coming of age in the field.
Peter is unquestionably one of the most important contemporary contributors to quantitative gravel-bed transport science and engineering.
He won the American Society of Civil Engineers Hans Albert Einstein award in 2008 and is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
And we talked a lot about that fundamental, early work, that is just kind of part of established gravel bed transport theory these days.
But 10 years ago he moved to Utah State, improving his proximity to classic gravel bed rivers, and in the years since I put that binder together of his paradigm shifting work,
Peter has been very intentional about translating his science into practical channel design methods, particularly for restoration channel designs.
So we talked about both…starting out with more of the channel design topics and then moving into his classic findings.
The Link to Peter's Stream Assessment and Design Class Materials (including iSURF) that we talk about is here:
https://qcnr.usu.edu/wats/programs/short-courses/sediment-transport/course-materials-2022
We also talk about Ron Copeland's channel design method. We made a short video with Ron on that method which is good background for this episode here:
https://youtu.be/ykJ3FA39p0g
Ron's podcast is here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ron-copeland-on-analytical-channel-design-the-laursen/id1650989239?i=1000587444097
Finally, we also have an interview with Joanna Curran (the Crowe in Wilcock and Crowe) which makes a good companion to this episode here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joanna-curran-on-gravel-bed-rivers-wilcock-and-crowe/id1650989239?i=1000589529286
This series was funded by the Regional Sediment Management (RSM) program.
Stanford Gibson (HEC Sediment Specialist) hosts.
Mike Loretto edited the episode and wrote and performed the music.
Video shorts and other bonus content are available at the podcast website:
https://www.hec.usace.army.mil/confluence/rasdocs/rastraining/latest/the-rsm-river-mechanics-podcast
...but most of the supplementary videos are available on the HEC Sediment YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/stanfordgibson
If you have guest recommendations or feedback you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or ResearchGate or fill out this recommendation and feedback form: https://forms.gle/wWJLVSEYe7S8Cd248