Long-term modelling of fluvial systems at the watershed scale: Examples from three case studies
2019
Varrani, Arianna | Nones, Michael | Gupana, Remika
To date, many numerical approaches are available in studying water flow and sediment dynamics along rivers from the reach to the watershed scale, based on various simplifications. The aim of the present research is to demonstrate how the so-called “morphodynamic quasi-equilibrium hypothesis” is effective in modelling riverine landscape morphodynamics evolution at the watershed scale, focussing on the long-term changes of longitudinal profile and bed grainsize composition of large alluvial rivers. A lumped 0-D, two-reach, two-grainsize model based on the Local Uniform Flow hypothesis and originally developed for reproducing fluvial changes at the historical time-scale, has been applied to three large watercourses to reproduce their long-term evolution, performing a sensitivity analysis based on the present conditions. Three morphometric parameters were analysed, aiming to describe the evolution of the longitudinal profile (concavity and aggrading) and the grainsize composition of the river bed (fining). Though the 0-D approach does not allow for a spatial distribution of the input parameters, namely the liquid and solid discharge, the modelling outcomes show reasonably good qualitative trends. At the scale of analysis (centuries to millennia) and for the chosen large sedimentary systems (thousands of kilometres long), which show high inertia to geomorphological changes likely owing to their longitudinal scale, the model can be helpful in detecting where the present conditions reflect a big disturbance to the “natural” trend. This initial detection method can provide additional insights in evaluating the capability of actual rivers to respond to the present external forcing, eventually reaching a quasi-stable configuration.
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