Meander

8/30/2014 Meander - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meander 1/10
A hypothetical stream bed following a tilted valley.
The maximum gradient is along the down-valley
axis represented by a hypothetical straight channel.
Meanders develop, which lengthen the course of the
stream, decreasing the gradient.
Meanders of the Rio Cauto at Guamo
Embarcadero, Cuba.
Meander
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A meander, in general, is a bend in a sinuous watercourse
or river. A meander forms when moving water in a stream
erodes the outer banks and widens its valley, and the inner
part of the river has less energy and deposits silt. A stream
of any volume may assume a meandering course,
alternately eroding sediments from the outside of a bend
and depositing them on the inside. The result is a snaking
pattern as the stream meanders back and forth across its
down-valley axis. When a meander gets cut off from the
main stream, an oxbow lake forms. Over time meanders
migrate downstream, sometimes in such a short time as to
create civil engineering problems for local municipalities
attempting to maintain stable roads and bridges.
There is not yet full consistency or standardization of
scientific terminology used to describe watercourses. A
variety of symbols and schemes exist. Parameters based on mathematical
formulae or numerical data vary as well, depending on the database used
by the theorist. Unless otherwise defined in a specific scheme
"meandering" and "sinuosity" here are synonymous and mean any
repetitious pattern of bends, or waveforms. In some schemes,
"meandering" applies only to rivers with exaggerated circular loops or
secondary meanders; that is, meanders on meanders.
Sinuosity is one of the channel types that a stream may assume over all or
part of its course. All streams are sinuous at some time in their geologic
history over some part of their length.
Contents
1 Origin of term
2 Meander geometry
3 Formation
3.1 Stochastic theory
3.2 Equilibrium theory
3.3 Geomorphic and morphotectonic theory
4 Associated landforms
4.1 Slip-off slope
4.2 River-cut cliff
Uvac canyon meander, Serbia
4.3 Erosion mechanics
4.4 Deposits
4.4.1 Incised meanders
4.4.2 Oxbow lakes
4.4.3 Abandoned meander (rincon)
4.4.4 Scroll-bars
5 Derived quantities
6 See also
7 References and notes
8 Bibliography
9 External links
Origin of term
The term derives from a river located in present-day Turkey and known to the Ancient Greeks as
Maiandros (Latin: Maeander),
[1]
characterised by a very convoluted path along the lower reach. As such, even in
Classical Greece (and in later Greek thought) the name of the river had become a common noun meaning anything
convoluted and winding, such as decorative patterns or speech and ideas, as well as the geomorphological
feature.
[2]
Strabo said: "... its course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering."
[3]
The Meander River is located south of Izmir, east of the ancient Greek town of Miletus, now, Milet, Turkey. It
flows through a graben in the Menderes Massif, but has a flood plain much wider than the meander zone in its lower
reach. In the Turkish name, the Byk Menderes River, Menderes is from "Meander".
Meander geometry
The technical description of a meandering
watercourse is termed meander geometry or
meander planform geometry.
[4]
It is characterized
as an irregular waveform. Ideal waveforms, such as
a sine wave, are one line thick, but in the case of a
stream the width must be taken into consideration.
The bankfull width is the distance across the bed at
an average cross-section at the full-stream level,
typically estimated by the line of lowest vegetation.
As a waveform the meandering stream follows the
down-valley axis, a straight line fitted to the curve such that the sum of all the amplitudes measured from it is zero.
This axis represents the overall direction of the stream.
Concave bank and convex bank,
Great Ouse Relief Channel, England.
Meander of the River Cuckmere in
Southern England
At any cross-section the flow is following the sinuous axis, the centerline of the bed. Two consecutive crossing
points of sinuous and down-valley axes define a meander loop. The meander is two consecutive loops pointing in
opposite transverse directions. The distance of one meander along the down-valley axis is the meander length or
wavelength. The maximum distance from the down-valley axis to the sinuous axis of a loop is the meander width or
amplitude. The course at that point is the apex.
In contrast to sine waves, the loops of a meandering stream are more nearly circular. The curvature varies from a
maximum at the apex to zero at a crossing point (straight line), also called an inflection, because the curvature
changes direction in that vicinity. The radius of the loop is the straight line perpendicular to the down-valley axis
intersecting the sinuous axis at the apex. As the loop is not ideal, additional information is needed to characterize it.
The orientation angle is the angle between sinuous axis and down-valley axis at any point on the sinuous axis.
A loop at the apex has an outer or convex bank and an inner or concave
bank. The meander belt is defined by an average meander width
measured from outer bank to outer bank instead of from centerline to
centerline. If there is a flood plain, it extends beyond the meander belt.
The meander is then said to be freeit can be found anywhere in the
flood plain. If there is no flood plain, the meanders are fixed.
Various mathematical formulae relate the variables of the meander
geometry. As it turns out some numerical parameters can be established,
which appear in the formulae. The waveform depends ultimately on the
characteristics of the flow but the parameters are independent of it and
apparently are caused by geologic factors. In general the meander length
is 10-14 times, with an average 11 times, the fullbank channel width and
3 to 5 times, with an average of 4.7 times, the radius of curvature at the apex. This radius is 2-3 times the channel
width.
A meander has a depth pattern as well. The cross-overs are marked by
riffles, or shallow beds, while at the apices are pools. In a pool direction
of flow is downward, scouring the bed material. The major volume,
however, flows more slowly on the inside of the bend where, due to
decreased velocity, it deposits sediment.
The line of maximum depth, or channel, is the thalweg or thalweg line. It
is typically designated the borderline when rivers are used as political
borders. The thalweg hugs the outer banks and returns to center over the
riffles. The meander arc length is the distance along the thalweg over one
meander. The river length is the length along the centerline.
Formation
Watch a Time Lapse of a Meandering River (http://socalgis.org/2014/03/12/time-lapse-of-a-river-changing-
course/)
Meander formation is a result of natural factors and processes. The waveform configuration of a stream is
constantly changing. Fluid flows around a bend in a vortex.
[5]
Once a channel begins to follow a sinusoidal path, the
amplitude and concavity of the loops increase dramatically due to the effect of helical flow sweeping dense eroded
Life history of a meander
material towards the inside of the bend, and leaving the outside of the bend unprotected and therefore vulnerable to
accelerated erosion, forming a positive feedback loop. In the words of Elizabeth A. Wood:
[6]
"... this process of making meanders seems to be a self-intensifying process ... in which greater
curvature results in more erosion of the bank, which results in greater curvature ...."
The cross-current along the floor of the channel is part of the secondary flow and sweeps dense eroded material
towards the inside of the bend.
[7]
The cross-current then rises to the surface near the inside and flows towards the
outside, forming the helical flow. The greater the curvature of the bend, and the faster the flow, the stronger is the
cross-current and the sweeping.
[8]
Spectacular meander scars, oxbow
lakes and abandoned meanders in the
broad flood plain of the Rio Negro,
Argentina. 2010 astronaut photo from
ISS.
Due to the conservation of angular momentum the speed on the inside of
the bend is faster than on the outside.
[9]
Since the flow velocity is diminished, so is the centrifugal pressure.
However, the pressure of the super-elevated column prevails, developing
an unbalanced gradient that moves water back across the bottom from
the outside to the inside. The flow is supplied by a counter-flow across
the surface from the inside to the outside.
[10]
This entire situation is very
similar to the Tea leaf paradox. This secondary flow carries sediment
from the outside of the bend to the inside making the river more
meandering.
[11]
As to why streams of any size become sinuous in the first place, there are
a number of theories, not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Stochastic theory
The stochastic theory can take many forms but one of the most general statements is that of Scheidegger:
[12]
"The meander train is assumed to be the result of the stochastic fluctuations of the direction of flow
due to the random presence of direction-changing obstacles in the river path."
Given a flat, smooth, tilted artificial surface, rainfall runs off it in sheets, but even in that case adhesion of water to
the surface and cohesion of drops produce rivulets at random. Natural surfaces are rough and erodible to different
degrees. The result of all the physical factors acting at random is channels that are not straight, which then
progressively become sinuous. Even channels that appear straight have a sinuous thalweg that leads eventually to a
sinuous channel.
Equilibrium theory
In the equilibrium theory, meanders decrease the stream gradient until an equilibrium between the erodibility of the
terrain and the transport capacity of the stream is reached.
[13]
A mass of water descending must give up potential
energy, which, given the same velocity at the end of the drop as at the beginning, is removed by interaction with the
material of the stream bed. The shortest distance; that is, a straight channel, results in the highest energy per unit of
length, disrupting the banks more, creating more sediment and aggrading the stream. The presence of meanders
allows the stream to adjust the length to an equilibrium energy per unit length in which the stream carries away all
the sediment that it produces.
Geomorphic and morphotectonic theory
Geomorphic refers to the surface structure of the terrain. Morphotectonic means having to do with the deeper, or
tectonic (plate) structure of the rock. The features included under these categories are not random and guide
streams into non-random paths. They are predictable obstacles that instigate meander formation by deflecting the
stream. For example, the stream might be guided into a fault line (morphotectonic).
The depositional slip-off slope is on
the left whilst there is a small river
cliff to the right. River Ashes Hollow,
UK.
Glen Canyon, USA
Associated landforms
Slip-off slope
On the inside of a meander is a gentle slope referred to as the slip-off
slope. It is often marked by a point bar in the river.
River-cut cliff
On the outside of a meander the river cuts into the bank, often resulting in
a river[-cut] cliff, also known as a cut bank, or a bluff.
Erosion mechanics
Most meanders occur in the region of a river channel with shallow
gradients, a well-developed floodplain, and cohesive floodplain material.
Deposition of sediment occurs on the inner edge, because the secondary
flow of the river
[14]
sweeps and rolls sand, rocks and other submerged objects across the bed of the river towards
the inside radius of the river bend, creating a point bar below the slip-off slope. Erosion is greater on the outside of
the bend where the soil is not protected by deposits of sand and rocks. The current on the outside bend is more
effective in eroding the unprotected soil, and the inside bend receives steadily increasing deposits of sand and
rocks, and the meander tends to grow in the direction of the outside bend, forming a small cliff called a cut bank.
This can be seen in areas where willows grow on the banks of rivers; on the inside of meanders, willows are often
far from the bank, whilst on the outside of the bend, the roots of the willows are often exposed and undercut,
eventually leading the trees to fall into the river. This demonstrates the river's movement. Slumping usually occurs on
the concave sides of the banks resulting in mass movements such as slides.
Deposits
Incised meanders
If the slope of an established meandering stream is suddenly increased,
it will resume downward erosion this happens when the base level of
the stream is reduced, for example due to tectonic uplift of the region, a
global fall in sea-level, collapse of a moraine-dammed lake
downstream, or by capture of the stream by a steeper one. As the
stream erodes downwards, its established meandering pattern will
remain as a deep valley known as an incised meander or entrenched
meander. Rivers in the Colorado Plateau, the Kentucky River
Palisades in central Kentucky, and streams in the Ozark Plateau are noted for these incised meanders.
Oxbow lakes
Goosenecks of the San Juan River, SE
Utah. Note cut-off meander at right
center.
Meanders, scroll-bars and oxbow lakes
in the Songhua River
Oxbow lakes are created when growing meanders intersect each other and cut off a meander loop, leaving it
without an active cutting stream. This process is usually linked to flooding where the river will tend to the path of
least resistance.
[15]
The oxbow, being of much lower energy than the more direct path, collects more and more
deposited sediment each season of flooding until it becomes independent from the river. The largest oxbow lakes
will be in areas with wider flood plains where the rivers have more
room to meander. Over a period of time, these oxbow lakes tend to
dry out or fill in with sediments.
Abandoned meander (rincon)
Sometimes an incised meander is cut off, similar to an oxbow lake. The
resulting landform is known as an abandoned meander. In the
southwest United States it is also known as a rincon. One dramatic
example, on Lake Powell, is called "The Rincon."
Scroll-bars
Scroll-bars are a result of continuous lateral migration of a meander
loop that creates an asymmetrical ridge and swale topography
[16]
on
the inside of the bends. The topography is generally parallel to the
meander, and is related to migrating bar forms and back bar chutes,
[17]
which carve sediment from the outside of the curve and deposit
sediment in the slower flowing water on the inside of the loop, in a
process called lateral accretion. Scroll-bar sediments are characterized
by cross-bedding and a pattern of fining upward.
[18]
These
characteristics are a result of the dynamic river system, where larger
grains are transported during high energy flood events and then
gradually die down, depositing smaller material with time (Batty 2006).
Deposits for meandering rivers are generally homogeneous and laterally
extensive unlike the more heterogeneous braided river deposits.
[19]
There are two distinct patterns of scroll-bar depositions; the eddy
accretion scroll bar pattern and the point-bar scroll pattern. When
looking down the river valley they can be distinguished because the
point-bar scroll patterns are convex and the eddy accretion scroll bar
patterns are concave.
[20]
Scroll bars often look lighter at the tops of the
ridges and darker in the swales. This is because the tops can be shaped
by wind, either adding fine grains or by keeping the area unvegetated, while the darkness in the swales can be
attributed to silts and clays washing in during high water periods. This added sediment in addition to water that
catches in the swales is in turn is a favorable environment for vegetation that will also accumulate in the swales.
Derived quantities
The meander ratio
[21]
or sinuosity index
[22]
is a means of quantifying how much a river or stream meanders (how
much its course deviates from the shortest possible path). It is calculated as the length of the stream divided by the
length of the valley. A perfectly straight river would have a meander ratio of 1 (it would be the same length as its
valley), while the higher this ratio is above 1, the more the river meanders.
Sinuosity indices are calculated from the map or from an aerial photograph measured over a distance called the
reach, which should be at least 20 times the average fullbank channel width. The length of the stream is measured
by channel, or thalweg, length over the reach, while the bottom value of the ratio is the downvalley length or air
distance of the stream between two points on it defining the reach.
The sinuosity index plays a part in mathematical descriptions of streams. The index may require elaboration,
because the valley may meander as welli.e., the downvalley length is not identical to the reach. In that case the
valley index is the meander ratio of the valley while the channel index is the meander ratio of the channel. The
channel sinuosity index is the channel length divided by the valley length and the standard sinuosity index is the
channel index divided by the valley index. Distinctions may become even more subtle.
[23]
Sinuosity Index has a non-mathematical utility as well. Streams can be placed in categories arranged by it; for
example, when the index is between 1 to 1.5 the river is sinuous, but if between 1.5 and 4, then meandering. The
index is a measure also of stream velocity and sediment load, those quantities being maximized at an index of 1
(straight).
See also
Riffle-pool sequence
Helicoidal flow
Baer's law
Meander cutoffs in Avulsion (river)
Meander scar
Crevasse splay
Jet stream exhibits meander also
References and notes
1. ^ "Meander" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meander). Merriam-Webster. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
2. ^ "Meander" (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=meander&allowed_in_frame=0). Online Etymology
Dictionary. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
3. ^ Strabo, Geography, Book 12 Chapter 8 Section 15.
4. ^ The technical definitions of this section rely heavily on Julien, Pierre Y. (2002). River Mechanics. Cambridge
University press. pp. 179184. ISBN 0-521-52970-0. In addition concepts are utilized from Graf, Walter (1984).
Hydraulics of Sediment Transport. Water Resources Publications. pp. 261265. ISBN 0-918334-56-X.
5. ^ Lewalle, Jacques (2006). "Flow Separation and Secondary Flow: Section 9.1"
(http://www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/lewalle/FluidDynamics/fluidsCh9.pdf). Lecture Notes in Incompressible Fluid
Dynamics: Phenomenology, Concepts and Analytical Tools. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University..
6. ^ Wood, Elizabeth A. (1975). Science from Your Airplane Window: 2nd Revised Edition. New York: Courier
Dover Publications. p. 45. ISBN 0-486-23205-0.
Bibliography
Hickin, Edward J. (2003). "Meandering Channels". In Middleton, Gerard V. Encyclopedia of Sediments
7. ^ Hickin 2003, p. 432. One of the important consequences of helical flow in meanders is that sediment eroded
from the outside of a meander bend tends to move to the inner bank or point bar of the next downstream bend.
8. ^ Hickin 2003, p. 434.
9. ^ Hickin 2003, p. 432. "In the absence of secondary flow, bend flow seeks to conserve angular momentum so that
it tends to conform to that of a free vortex with high velocity at the smaller radius of the inner bank and lower
velocity at the outer bank where radial acceleration is lower."
10. ^ Hickin 2003, p. 432. "Near the bed, where velocity and thus the centrifugal effects are lowest, the balance of
forces is dominated by the inward hydraulic gradient of the super-elevated water surface and secondary flow
moves toward the inner bank."
11. ^ Callander, R.A. "River Meandering," Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 1978. 10:129-58
12. ^ Scheidegger, Adrien E. (2004). Morphotectonics. Berlin, New York: Springer. p. 113. ISBN 3-540-20017-7.
13. ^ Riley, Ann L. (1998). Restoring Streams in Cities: A Guide for Planners, Policymakers and Citizens. Washington
DC: Island Press. p. 137. ISBN 1-55963-042-6.
14. ^ Chant, Robert J. (2002). "Secondary circulation in a region of flow curvature: Relationship with tidal forcing and
river discharge" (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2001JC001082.shtml). Journal of Geophysical Research
107.
15. ^ Brower, Lincoln P "The Flooding river a study in riverine ecology," 1972.
16. ^ Woolfe and Purdon; Purdon, Richard (1996). "Deposits of a rapidly eroding meandering river: terrace cut and fill
in the Taupo Volcanic Zone". New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 39 (2): 243249.
doi:10.1080/00288306.1996.9514708 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F00288306.1996.9514708).
17. ^ K. Whipple (September 2004). "Alluvial channels and their landforms". Surface Processes and Landscape
Evolution.
18. ^ Sam Boggs, Jr. (2003). Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (4 ed.). NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
ISBN 0-13-099696-3.
19. ^ G. Wasser (2005). "A Comparison Of Meandering River Deposits From The Middle Belly River And Horsefly
With Recent Milk River Valley Deposits; Central And Southern Alberta". Calgary, Alberta: Canadian Natural
Resource Limited.
20. ^ Norman D. Smith and John Rogers (1999). Fluvial Sedimentology (6 ed.). blackwell publishing. ISBN 0-632-
05354-2.
21. ^ Shaw, Lewis C. (1984). Pennsylvania Gazetteer of Streams Part II. Bulletin No. 16. Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Resources. p. 8. OCLC 17150333
(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/17150333).
22. ^ Gordon, Nancy D.; Thomas A. McMahon; Christopher J. Gippel; Rory J. Nathan (2005). Stream Hydrology: an
Introduction for Ecologists: Second Edition. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 183184. ISBN 0-470-84357-8.
23. ^ Singh, R.Y. (2005). "Interface drainage analysis of a water divide". In Jansky, Libor; Haigh, Martin J.; Prasad,
Hushila. Sustainable Management of Headwater Resources: Research from Africa and India. Tokyo, New York:
United Nations University Press. pp. 87106. ISBN 92-808-1108-8.
Look up rincn in
Wiktionary, the free
dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Meanders.
and Sedimentary Rocks. Kluwer Academic Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer
Academic Publishers. pp. 430434. ISBN 1-4020-0872-4.
Leopold, Luna B.; Langbein, W.B. (June 1966). "River Meanders". Scientific American: 60.
Thonemann, P., The Maeander Valley: A historical geography from Antiquity to Byzantium
(Cambridge, 2011) (Greek Culture in the Roman World Series).
External links
Movshovitz-Hadar, Nitsa; Alla Shmuklar (2006-01-01). "River
Meandering and a Mathematical Model of this Phenomenon"
(http://physicaplus.org.il/zope/home/en/1124811264/1141060775rivers_en). Physicalplus (Israel Physical
Society (IPS)) (7). Retrieved 2008-02-23.
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