3.2 Water samples collection
Because a significant proportion of suspended sediment is transported during infrequent high flows (Mao et al., 2019), the frequency of collection was higher during periods of high flow to capture the high transport rates. Following the average monthly precipitation and temperature (Figure 2d), at least 5 samples were collected during periods of high flows from April to September while at least 2 samples were collected during periods of low flows from October to March In total there were 158 sampling events from August 2013 to July 2017 with a gap from September 2014 to August 2015 due to manpower and logistical constraints.