Bed load sediment transport inferred from seismic signals near a river

We examine broadband (5–480 Hz) seismic data from the Erlenbach stream in the Swiss Prealps, where discharge, precipitation, and bed load transport are independently constrained. A linear inversion of seismic spectra, exploiting isolated discharge or rain events, identifies the signals generated by water turbulence and rainfall. This allows us to remove the contributions of turbulence and rainfall from the seismic spectra, isolating the signal of bed load transport. We calibrate the regression for bed load transport during one storm and then use this regression with precipitation and discharge data to calculate bed load transport rates from 2 months of seismic spectra. Our predicted bed load transport rates correlate reasonably well with transport rates from calibrated geophones embedded in the channel (r2 ~ 0.6, p