Field measurement of bedload in a sand-bed river supplying a sediment starving beach

A two years field campaign of bedload transport measurements was carried out on the Fiumi Uniti R. a few kilometres upstream of its outlet into the Adriatic Sea in order to investigate the role of river sediment supply to a beach that has been experiencing severe degradation throughout the last decades. The threshold condition for bedload entrainment observed in the field are analysed and compared with those predicted by classical criteria. The bedload transport rates measured in the field are also tested against the predictions of six bedload equations among the most renown in the literature. The dune migration method is also used to predict bedload transport rates and proved to be very accurate. The different approaches and data analysed confirm a low rate of bedload transport in the study reach, sediment supply limited condition for both the study and beaches fed by it.