Creative Associates: Extract Transform Bedload

Making the most of bedload: passive sensing and open data to manage for flood risk resilience and biodiversity gain
Knapp Mill landscape in augmented reality. Image: SEI Creative Associates/Pete Downs/The Data Place/Controlled Frenzy

Knapp Mill landscape in augmented reality. Image: SEI Creative Associates/Pete Downs/The Data Place/Controlled Frenzy

Understanding bedload transport in rivers is fundamental to managing for river resilience, avoiding flood risk and promoting biodiversity. 

Recent developments in passive monitoring equipment now make low-cost, long-term collection of high-resolution bedload data possible and, with it, comes the potential for transforming our understanding of how rivers function.

An open data platform for the River Avon

The 2018 Sustainable Earth Institute Creative Associate Award enabled collaboration between Dr Peter Downs, Associate Professor in Physical Geography at the Â鶹´«Ã½, Dr Philip Soar (University of Portsmouth), Â鶹´«Ã½-based open data firm , and the creative technology company . The project has developed an open data platform for storing, interrogating and visualising high-resolution bedload data, using an initial data set from Devon’s River Avon. The Avon data encompasses five water years, making it probably the world’s longest continuously monitored bedload dataset from a portable monitoring station.