The formation of single-channel and multiple-channel rivers on large slopes

Abstract

We investigated the formation of different types of rivers depending on slope, total discharge, and grain size. Calculations were performed using numerical package CCHE2D, developed by the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering. The model is based on the Navier-Stokes equations for depth-integrated two-dimensional turbulent flow and the three-dimensional convection-diffusion equation of sediment transport. For each model we use the same river geometry, suspended load concentration, and bedload transport rate. We distinguish three types of rivers using two methods for classification (single-channel, multiple-channels and transitional). We found that the trend line for transitional rivers is an increasing function of Q in space (Q, d) and that for large S the number of multichannel rivers decreases.