Impacts of river engineering on river channel behaviour: Implications for managing downstream flood risk
Although knowledge of sediment transport has improved over the last 25 years, our understanding of bedload transfer and sediment delivery is still based on a limited set of observations or on models that make assumptions on hydraulic and sediment transport processes.
This study utilises repeat lidar survey data of the River Caldew above the City of Carlisle in the UK to investigate the balance of erosion and deposition associated with channel switching from an engineered and managed single thread channel to a naturalising incipient wandering system.
One of this research's conclusions is that encouraging upstream naturalisation towards wandering channel systems can act as a form of “natural sediment management” acting in combination with other natural flood management approaches to reduce downstream flood risk.
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