Elsevier

Geomorphology

Volumes 163–164, 15 August 2012, Pages 1-9
Geomorphology

Advances and challenges in meandering channels research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2012.04.011Get rights and content

Abstract

Meandering channels is a vast research field, spanning a broad variety of time and space scales, environmental domains, and conceptual and methodological approaches. This paper serves as an introduction to this special issue of Geomorphology “Meandering Channels”, which addresses the need for sustained scientific dialogue on the dynamics of meandering channels. In an effort to place this issue in the broad context of this rapidly changing and advancing research field, we begin by discussing the motivation behind this issue. Then, we continue by summarizing the main novel research contributions of each paper. Finally, we conclude by proposing five major research directions that directly develop from the ensemble of the scientific contributions to this special issue. These research directions emphasize the critical importance of the coupling of near-bank geomorphic and flow processes; the characterization of co-evolution of meandering rivers and their floodplains; the need to improve linkages between meandering rivers research and river management and restoration; the potential of expanding laboratory-based research; and the integration of holistic and reductionist approaches.

Introduction

The term “meander” originates from the Büyük Menderes River, which rises in west central Turkey and reaches the Aegean Sea east of Milet, the ancient Ionian city of Miletus. This winding river was known to the ancient Greeks as Maíandros (Latin meaender) (Lewis and Short, 1922, Strabo, 1924). Use of the term has subsequently evolved to describe anything winding in form, including decorative patterns in art and architecture. Meandering is a common planform of rivers and of submarine channels.

Meandering river channels are dynamic landforms that migrate over floodplains. The migration of meandering rivers results from interactions among flow, sediment transport, and channel form that create complicated sedimentary structures and lead to the evolution of channel planform over time (Seminara, 2006). The morphodynamics of meandering river channels play an important role in sedimentation patterns and processes (e.g., Nanson and Beach, 1977, Howard, 1992, Sun et al., 1996, Gilvear et al., 2000), and hydrological and ecological processes (e.g., Salo et al., 1986, Ward et al., 2002) in floodplain environments. Interest in the dynamics of meandering river channels is scientific and includes concerns related to river engineering and management, such as flood control, navigation, bank erosion, and the protection of land and infrastructure. Meandering river processes are also important in the understanding of the functions of river–floodplain ecosystem as well as human impacts on these functions that can degrade water quality, disrupt river–floodplain connectivity, and diminish aquatic-habitat health and diversity (e.g., Brookes and Shields, 1996, Lagasse et al., 2004, Piégay et al., 2005, Gurnell et al., 2006, Kondolf, 2006, Güneralp and Rhoads, 2009a).

Research on meandering rivers has mainly attempted to explain the morphodynamic evolution of meandering rivers governed by the interactions among water flow, sediment transport, channel planform, and bed morphology. Meandering rivers have drawn considerable attention from a large group of researchers in various fields, ranging from fluvial geomorphology (e.g., Leopold and Wolman, 1960, Hooke, in press) to fluid mechanics and morphodynamics (e.g., Callander, 1978, Ikeda et al., 1981); from river engineering (e.g., Jansen et al., 1979, Elliot, 1984) to petroleum engineering (e.g., Henriquez et al., 1990, Swanson, 1993) to landscape ecology and river restoration (e.g., Greco and Plant, 2003, Kondolf, 2006). The scope of research also encompasses a broad range of spatial scales, from the detailed studies of flow properties at the scale of turbulent eddies (e.g., Blanckaert and de Vriend, 2003) to investigations of the evolution of meander trains (i.e., series of meander bends) over the entire length of an alluvial floodplain (e.g., Gautier et al., 2007). Similarly, studies on river meandering vary in temporal scale, ranging from the response to a single channel-forming event (Hooke, 2004) to the evolution of floodplains over millennia (e.g., Howard, 1992, Sun et al., 1996, Camporeale et al., 2005, Frascati and Lanzoni, 2009) (Table 1). Although substantive progress has been made, further research is required to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the bio-morphodynamics governing the evolution of meandering channels at different scales and in a variety of environmental domains. The processes governing these dynamics result from the interaction among turbulent river flow, sediment transport, bank erosion mechanisms (e.g., Mosselman, 1998, Darby et al., 2002, Duan and Julien, 2005, and planform morphology (e.g., Parker et al., 1983, Olesen, 1984, Zolezzi and Seminara, 2001, Abad and García, 2009a). Spatial variability in the erosional resistance of floodplain environments is an important external factor that influences the dynamics of meandering (Güneralp and Rhoads, 2011), including the effects of riparian vegetation (e.g., Perucca et al., 2007), the sedimentology of river deposits (e.g., Howard, 1992, Sun et al., 1996, Hudson and Kesel, 2000) and the geological structure of the floodplain landscape (e.g., Nicoll and Hickin, 2010).

Meandering patterns similar to those of rivers are also observed in depositional submarine fans at or beyond the base of the continental slope formed by turbidity currents (Flood and Damuth, 1987, Abreu et al., 2003) and on other planetary environments (Weihaupt, 1974, Bray et al., 2007, Howard, 2009). Meandering channels in submarine and extraterrestrial environments drew the attention of the scientific community later than the terrestrial counterparts (Shepard, 1966, Weihaupt, 1974). Growing interest in submarine meandering channels, since the beginning of 21th, century can be attributed mainly to the increasing availability of extensive high resolution data produced by new oceanographic bathymetric mapping technologies.

Section snippets

Why a special issue on meandering channels?

By the latter part of the 20th century, research on meandering rivers had increased to the extent that in 1983 the conference Rivers'83, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), focused exclusively on such rivers. The symposium provided a forum for discussion and exchange of knowledge and ideas on the mechanisms and response of river meandering as well as the impact of human activities on meandering rivers. The widespread participation in the symposium by researchers from

Overview of the contributions

This special issue consists of nine papers — eight research contributions and one opinion piece (Table 2). Most of these papers (eight of nine) examine meandering rivers, whereas the remaining research paper focuses on submarine meandering channels. The main focus of the fluvial papers is on interactions between flow and bed topography or between flow and bank erosion. The spatial scale ranges from channel-width scale to the reach scale and the temporal scale ranges from equilibrium scale to

Concluding remarks

Research on meandering channels, similar to the research on other fluvial systems, is a vast and dynamically changing field, spanning a broad variety of disciplines, environmental domains, time-space scales, and conceptual and methodological approaches. This introduction has attempted to frame the overall contributions of this special issue in the broad context of meandering channels research (Table 2). Within this context, this special issue can be considered as highly focused with most

Acknowledgments

This special issue was made possible by the support and involvement of many individuals. We would like express our thanks to the participants of the special issue. We thank numerous reviewers for their time and effort in helping to improve the manuscripts of this special issue. We also thank Richard Marston (Geomorphology Editor in-chief), Jack Vitek (Geomorphology, Special Issue Editor), and Elsevier Journal Managers for their help and patience throughout the processes.

We give a special thanks

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