Live-bed scour at a vertical-wall abutment is experimentally investigated with specific attention paid to the conceptual issues concerning the temporal development of local scour phenomenon. First explored are the time scales for the initial rising phase of the time variation of scour depth. An appropriate identification of such scales and of their normalizing parameters makes it possible to recognize a quantitative dependency of nondimensional time scales on flow intensity. Second, the time scales for the subsequent fluctuations around a mean equilibrium value are considered. Experimental results indicate that the quasiperiodical fluctuations of scour depths do not always correspond to those of bed forms. A conceptual model is outlined to explain this aspect. © 2010 ASCE.