Effective discharge for suspended sediment transport in streams of the Saskatchewan River Basin

Effective discharge for suspended sediment load was determined for 21 sites in the Saskatchewan River basin at which sediment records range from 5 to 29 years in length. The drainage areas for these streams ranges from 10 to over 300,000 km2. The sediment discharge histograms have a variety of forms ranging from the classic unimodal form in which the peak occurs at discharges with a duration of 1–3% to those in which the effective discharge is the extreme event of record and cases in which a single effective discharge is difficult to define. The percentage duration of the effective‐discharge ranges from less than 0.1% to over 15%, a greater range than previously has been reported. There is an obvious tendency for the percentage duration of the effective discharge to increase with drainage area and hence downstream through the drainage system.