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.