Hydraulic geometry of active gravel rivers.

Abstract

The hydraulic geometry of straight reaches of wide, active rivers with beds and banks composed of loose gravel is considered. Naive mechanistics formulations lead to the stable channel paradox; stable width is incompatible with an active bed. A resolution of the paradox based on bed stress redistribution due to turbulent lateral transfer of downstream momentum is outlined and is used to obtain three rationally derived regime relations which provide channel properties as functions of bed pavement size and two specified variables, eg. water and sediment discharge, or water discharge and width. -from ASCE Publications Abstracts