Where does scour collide?

In hydraulic engineering scour is the removal of bed and bank material by flowing water, especially the local scour that digs a hole around a bridge pier or abutment where the flow accelerates and forms vortices, undermining the foundation. Melville and Coleman's Bridge scour sets out how scour depth is estimated and guarded against so a bridge is not lost to erosion at its supports. The referent is an erosion process at a structure, unrelated to a diarrhoeal disease in calves or the grinding of rock by ice.[1]

Unit

The depth of the scour hole below the original bed

Recovery means

Scour holes may partly refill as flows drop, but design treats the maximum depth as the hazard

Measured by

Estimated by empirical scour-depth equations and confirmed by surveyed bed levels

In veterinary medicine scours (or the scours) is the common name for diarrhoea in young farm animals, above all neonatal calf diarrhoea, where infection and fluid loss threaten the animal's life through dehydration and acid–base disturbance. Foster and Smith's Pathophysiology of diarrhea in calves explains how the gut's secretion and absorption go wrong and why fluid loss is the central danger. The referent is an animal disease, sharing only the word with riverbed erosion or glacial abrasion.[2]

Unit

The severity of diarrhoea and resulting dehydration in the animal

Recovery means

Affected animals recover with fluid and electrolyte therapy if dehydration is corrected in time

Measured by

Assessed clinically by faecal consistency, dehydration signs, and blood electrolyte and acid–base status

In glacial geomorphology scour is the erosion of bedrock by moving ice, which abrades the rock with entrained debris and plucks blocks from it, carving the smoothed and streamlined forms of a glaciated landscape. Benn and Evans's Glaciers and glaciation treats abrasion and quarrying as the processes by which a glacier scours its bed. The referent is a long-term landscape-shaping process, unrelated to erosion at a bridge pier or a livestock illness.[3]

Unit

The volume or depth of bedrock removed by the ice over time

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Inferred from erosional landforms, striations, and reconstructed rates of bedrock removal