River Energy Auditing Scheme (REAS) for catchment flood management planning

An approach is presented that aims to provide a quantitative geomorphological audit of a river system to facilitate channel management and to better inform catchment flood management planning. This is a strand of research currently being undertaken at the University of Nottingham, UK in its role as a member of the Flood Risk Management Research Consortium. The auditing system uses a broad scale method (that is flexible to data availability) to classify reaches as acting predominantly as sediment sources (eroding), pathways (transfer links) or sinks (depositing) over a period of years. This is achieved by estimating the difference in timeintegrated specific stream power between consecutive reaches to indicate potential continuity or imbalance in the sediment transfer system. A pilot study has been performed on the Hawkcombe Stream, Somerset, England. Initial results are encouraging and compare favorably with those of a previous geomorphological study that used the well-established Fluvial Audit technique.