Applying floodplain geomorphology to flood management (The Lower Vistula River upstream from Plock, Poland)

Abstract

Using remote sensing extended on geological and topographical maps and verified by the field work, we present the flood management and study the geomorphic features of the floodplain of a large, sand bed, untrained but embanked river in order to determine the flood hazard and to predict future flood scenarios. In geomorphological mapping, we focus on the landforms: crevasse channels and splays, flood basin, chute channels, side arms, floodplain channels, dunes and fields of aeolian sand. We base the flood risk assessment on consultations with environmental engineers who design new technical structures that control inundation (cut-off walls and lattice levees). We describe a levee breach as a result of piping (inner erosion) in a high hydraulic gradient condition and its effect (scour hole) as an erosional landform consistent with the repetitive pattern of erosion and deposition formed by an overbank flow on a floodplain. We reveal an existence of homogenous morphodynamic reaches in the river valley.