Adaptation of river channels to a wetter or drier climate: Insights from the Lower Pilcomayo River, South America

Climate change has a direct influence on both hydrology and floodplain vegetation of water courses, which are key players in river morphodynamics. The river system response to climate change is complex and the effects of non-linear interactions between alterations in water, sediment and vegetation remain incompletely understood. Which of...

Floodplain Land Cover and Flow Hydrodynamic Control of Overbank Sedimentation in Compound Channel Flows

Overbank sedimentation is predominantly due to fine sediments transported under suspension that become trapped and settle in floodplains when high-flow conditions occur in rivers. In a compound channel, the processes of exchanging water and fine sediments between the main channel and floodplains regulate the geomorphological evolution and are...

Effects of riparian and floodplain vegetation on river patterns and flow dynamics

Flume experiments and field observations demonstrating the effects of vegetation on river planforms are reported in literature, but numerical studies of these effects at the river scale are lacking. We investigated the effects of vegetation in a 2D morphodynamic model using submodels for flow resistance and colonisation of newly formed deposits....

Modelling Floodplain Biogeomorphology

Understanding the interactions between the ecosystem and the morphology of river floodplains, i.e. floodplain biogeomorphology, is becoming increasingly important in view of modern river management and climate change. There is a need for predictive models for the natural response of river floodplains to hydraulic measures and river...