Evaluation of Total Load Equation for Malaysian Mountain Rivers

Development of total sediment load (TL) equations for Malaysian rivers was first cited in Sinnakaudan et al. [1]. Sinnakaudan et al. [4] proposed an equation which may best predict TL for mountain rivers (MR). In 2011, Sinnakaudan and Sulaiman [3] listed another 22 possible combinations of multiple linear regression TL equations which may be used for MR in Malaysia. However, their performance is not fully verified due to field data constraints. The present paper gives the performance test carried out for the equations with latest 130 sets of data collected from 25 numbers of Malaysian MR. The accuracy of the existing equations was obtained using the discrepancy ratio analysis, which is the ratio of calculated values to the measured values. Overall prediction indicates that Eq. (11) obtained from Sinnakaudan and Sulaiman [3] performs better compared to other equations; however, the percentage prediction is still below 30 %. Thus, a site-specific equation is proposed to be developed based on to correctly predict the sediment transport in MR in Malaysia