Int. J. Hydrology Science and Technology, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2018 393 Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A simplification of the Einstein equation for the calculation of suspended sediment transport in rivers Hydar Lafta Ali* Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia and Centre for the Restoration of the Iraq Marshlands and Wetlands (CRIMW), Ministry of Water Resources, Baghdad, Iraq Email: hydar_e@yahoo.com *Corresponding author Thamer Ahamed Mohammed Department of Water Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Iraq Email: tthamer@gmail.com Badronnisa Binti Yusuf and Azlan Abdul Aziz Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia Email: nisa@upm.edu.my Email: azlaneac@gmail.com Abstract: In this study, a simplified equation for estimating suspended sediment load is proposed, based on regression analysis and the concept presented by Einstein, Ackers and White, and Shields. Field data for 11 rivers located at different parts of the world were used for the calibration and validation of the proposed equation. The results show that the equation gives a good performance compared with Einstein’s and Bagnold’s equations when tested using field data for the Atchafalaya, Red, South American, Rio Grande and Al-Garraf rivers. The minimum and maximum values of mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) between the output of the proposed equation and field records were 0.005 to 0.007 and 0.09 to 0.289, respectively. For the above rivers, graphical comparisons show that the predicted values of suspended sediment load had a range of D 50 < 0.14 and 0.14 < D 50 < 0.2 and were scattered near the line of perfect agreement, while