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Sediment Transport by Wind and Water: The Pioneering Work of Ralph Bagnold

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Macro-engineering Seawater in Unique Environments

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Abstract

In 1978, at the age of 82, Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science by Aarhus University in Denmark. For the occasion, he gave a lecture, later published in Nordic Hydrology (Bagnold 1979), titled “Sediment Transport by Wind and Water.” In his introduction, Bagnold remarked, in his typically blunt style, that “it is doubtful whether modern textbooks of river and canal engineering convey any clearer understanding of the natural processes involved than was probably possessed by the great engineer Pharaohs of the 12th Dynasty 4,000 years ago, one at least of whose vast canals appears to have remained self-clearing for 1,500 years.”

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Acknowledgments

The writer is indebted to Stephen Bagnold for his help and permission to use quotations from his father’s works and the photograph.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Orogen Limited, London, UK

    Michael Welland

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  1. Michael Welland
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Correspondence to Michael Welland .

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  1. Candida Oancea Inst., Polytechnic University Bucuresti, Spl. Independentei 313, Bucuresti, 060042, Romania

    Viorel Badescu

  2. Geographos, W. Olive Avenue 1300, Burbank, 91506-2225, California, USA

    Richard B. Cathcart

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Welland, M. (2010). Sediment Transport by Wind and Water: The Pioneering Work of Ralph Bagnold. In: Badescu, V., Cathcart, R. (eds) Macro-engineering Seawater in Unique Environments. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14779-1_19

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