“…The error in prediction sometimes becomes unacceptable in gravel-bed rivers where the measured transport rates often differ by one to two orders of magnitude from predictions using the standard formulae (Bathurst, 2007;Barry et al, 2004). One of the major obstacles is the poor understanding of the degree to which a river-bed is coarsened or armored (Wilcock and DeTemple, 2005;Barry et al, 2004;Karim and Holly, 1986;Wu et al, 2004). In a mixed-size gravel-bed river, the bed is often sorted such that the surface composition is coarser than the substrate (Whiting and King, 2003;Wilcock and Crowe, 2003;Parker and Sutherland, 1990;Parker, 1990).…”