Familiar Fieldwork

PHYSICAL

Title: To assess how discharge and sediment size change along a rivers long profile

This location was chosen because it is a short river, only 28 miles long and survey sites can easily all be accessed in a short space of time

This allows for a comprehensive examination of the river's characteristics, enabling us to gather data efficiently and reduce travel time between sites.

Data collection

Primary data: Sediment size at 3 locations along the river

Secondary data: Discharge and flow rates - found via National River Flow Archive

Quantitative date: Systematic sediment size selection, sediment size, discharge/flow

Qualitative data: Location description and photos of location

Method 1: sediment sizes

The date was collected at 3 sites on the upper ,middle ,and lower course of the river. 10 stones were measured and they were all measured along the longest axis. Systematic sampling was used across the river bed.

The data was collected this way because it creates a range of data, consistency in the way the stones were measured and this makes a fair and accurate assessment as we got the data ourselves

The negatives to this method is some people may not have measured the stones as accurate as others, to make this experiment better the stones should be measured all by the same person, more sites should be used along the river, and more stones should be measured, 10 sites, 100 stones each site

There is also the risk of falling in the river and drowning or slipping on wet rocks and breaking a bone. This risk can be mitigated by staying on the river bed and not getting near the river

Method 2: river discharge

The data was collected from the NRFA website, which using 30 years of data from every single day.

The data was collected this way because it is safer and possibly more accurate than going to collect it ourselves and it gets a large range of data easily.

The negative to this method is that as we did not collect the data ourselves, the data may not be entirely reliable or what form we want for the data presentation.

Data presentation

For this set of data, we presented it using a dispersion graph. This graph was chosen for this type of data because it shows clearly the changes in stone sizes as we move down the river, it also clearly shows anomalies so we can rule them out. It is also a good graph for calculating the range of each site, and of the whole river.

HUMAN