Formation of a cohesive floodplain in a dynamic experimental meandering river

What is it about?

In this paper we describe two small-scale experiments in which one a braided river developed and in the other a meandering river. Both experiments had the same initial and boundary conditions, expect that in the meandering river we added some finer cohesive silts through the sediment feed. These experiments show that with the addition of cohesive material, the bank erosion and chute cutoff occurrence reduces and that cohesive finer-grained material is a necessary condition for river meandering.

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Why is it important?

This study is an extension of our first paper Experimental Meandering River with Chute Cutoffs. Here we demonstrate that for the development of a full meander additional cohesive material should be added to reduce chute cutoffs and develop high sinuous meanders.