Effects of wet meadow riparian vegetation on streambank erosion. 1. Remote sensing measurements of streambank migration and erodibility

We quantified how rates of stream channel migration in a montane meadow vary as a function of the riparian vegetation community. The South Fork of the Kern River at Monache Meadow, located in California's southern Sierra Nevada range, supports two distinct types of vegetation: a dry meadow community dominated by sagebrush and non‐native grasses (xeric scrub and meadow), and a wet meadow community dominated by rushes and sedges (hydric graminoids). We measured rates of lateral stream migration for dry versus wet meadow reaches from aerial photographs spanning a 40‐year period (1955–1995). While stream migration rates averaged only 0·24 ± 0·02 m a^?1 in the wet meadow, the dry meadow channel migrated an average of 1·4 ± 0·3 m a^?1. We used a linear model of meander migration to calculate coefficients that characterize bank migration potential, or bank erodibility, independent of channel curvature. These calculations demonstrate that, at Monache Meadow, banks without wet meadow vegetation are roughly ten times more susceptible to erosion than banks with wet meadow vegetation. Where stream bank heights consistently exceed 1 m, low water availability creates riparian habitats dominated by dry meadow vegetation. Thus, channel incision may reduce bank stability not only by increasing bank height, but also by converting banks from wet meadow to dry meadow vegetation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Critical caving erosion width for cantilever failures of river bank

The cantilever failure is one of the typical bank failures, in which the lateral caving erosion at the bottom of the bank plays an important role. When the caving erosion width is larger than a certain value, the cantilever failures such as shear, toppling and stress failures may occur. In order to understand the condition of the cantilever failure, the collapse mechanisms of the cantilever failures are studied based on the bank stability theory and flume experiment. According to the bank stability equation with the lateral erosion, the critical caving erosion width (CCEW) formulas for the shear and toppling failures of simple slope bank were derived in this paper. The formulas show that the CCEW increases as the overhanging soil thickness and soil cohesion increase, and decreases as the crack depth on the bank surface and the slope angle of the bank increase. And these formulas were tested with experimental data, which shows the predicted values are good agreement with experimental data. The paper reveals a quantitative expression on the process of the river cantilever failure.     

Stability of composite river banks

The stability of a river bank depends on the balance of forces, motive and resistive, associated with the most critical mechanism of failure. Many mechanisms are possible and the likelihood of failure occurring by any particular one depends on the size, geometry and structure of the bank, the engineering properties of the bank material, the hydraulics of flow in the adjacent channel and climatic conditions. Rivers flowing through alluvial deposits often have a composite structure of cohesionless sand and gravel overlain by cohesive silt/clay. Bank erosion occurs by fluvial entrainment of material from the lower, cohesionless bank at a much higher rate than material from the upper, cohesive bank. This leads to undermining that produces cantilevers of cohesive material. Upper bank retreat takes place predominantly by the failure of these cantilevers. Three mechanisms of failure have been identified: shear, beam and tensile failure. The stability of a cantilever may be analysed using static equilibrium and beam theory, and dimensionless charts for cantilever stability constructed. Application of the charts requires only a few simple measurements of cantilever geometry and soil properties. In this analysis the effects of cracks and fissures in the soil must be taken into account. These cracks seriously weaken the soil and can invalidate a stability analysis by affecting the shape of the failure surface. Following mechanical failure, blocks of soil must be removed from the basal area by fluvial entrainment if rapid undermining and cantilever generation are to continue. Hence, the rate of bank retreat is fluvially controlled, even though the mechanism of failure of the upper bank is not directly fluvial in nature. This cycle of bank erosion: undermining, cantilever failure and fluvial scour of the toe, operates over several flood events and has important implications for river engineering, channel changes, and the movement of sediment through fluvial systems.     

Modeling the functional influence of vegetation type on streambank cohesion

The important role of vegetation in adding cohesion and stabilizing streambanks has been widely recognized in several aspects of fluvial geomorphology, including stream restoration and studies of long‐term channel change. Changes in planform between braided, meandering, and anabranching forms have been attributed to the impacts of vegetation on hydraulic roughness and bank stability. However, these studies focus either on flume studies where analog vegetation is used, or case studies featuring one species, which is commonly invasive. We present functional differences of bank‐stabilizing root characteristics and added cohesion, with vegetation categorized as woody and non‐woody and by the vegetation groups of trees, shrubs, graminoids, and forbs. We analyzed root morphology and tensile strength of 14 species common to riparian areas in the southern Rocky Mountains, in field sites along streambanks in the montane and subalpine zones of the Colorado Front Range. Using the vegetation root component (RipRoot) of a physically‐based bank stability model (BSTEM), we estimated the added cohesion for various sediment textures with the addition of each of the 14 species. Significant differences exist between woody and non‐woody vegetation and between the four vegetation categories with respect to the coefficient of the root tensile strength curve, lateral root extent, and maximum root diameter. Woody vegetation (trees and shrubs) have higher values of all three parameters than non‐woody species. Tree roots add significantly more cohesion to streambanks than forb roots. Additionally, rhizomes may play an important role in determining the reach‐scale effects of roots on bank stabilization. Differences in root characteristics and added cohesion among vegetation categories have several important implications, including determining the likelihood of planform change, developing guidelines for the use of bank‐stabilizing vegetation, and linking the effect of vegetation to geomorphic structure that can benefit ecosystem functioning. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental investigation on cohesionless sandy bank failure resulting from water level rising

In the last decade, sediment replenishment forming cohesionless sandy banks below dams has become an increasingly common practice in Japan to compensate for sediment deficits downstream. The erosion process of the placed cohesionless sediment is a combination of lateral toe-erosion and the following mass failure. To explore cohesionless bank failure mechanisms, a series of experiments was done in a soil tank using a compacted sandy soil mass exposed to an increasing water level. Two types of uniform sand(D_(50) = 0.40 mm and 0.17 mm) and two bank heights(50 cm and 25 cm) were used under the condition of a constant bank slope of 75°. The three dimensional(3D) geometry of the bank after failure was measured using a handheld 3D scanner. The motion of bank failure was captured using the particle image velocimetry(PIV) technique, and the matric suction was measured by tensiometers. The compacted sandy soil was eroded by loss of matric suction accompanying the rise in water level which subsequently caused rotational slide and cantilever toppling failure due to destabilization of the bank. The effect of erosion protection resulting from the slumped blocks after these failures is discussed in the light of different failure mechanisms. Tensile strength is analyzed by inverse calculation of cantilever toppling failure events. The tensile strength had non-linear relation with degree of saturation and showed a peak.The findings of the study show that it is important to incorporate the non-linear relation of tensile strength into stability analysis of cantilever toppling failure and prediction of tension crack depth within unsaturated cohesionless banks.     

Modelling of cantilever bank failure for peat-type meander bends in the source region of the Yellow River

Bank retreat involving a combination of fluvial erosion and bank collapse has been found to be a major contributor to sediment transport, lateral migration, and planform evolution of meandering rivers.Previous studies have largely examined the general mechanism of cantilever bank failure. However, the composite process of beam(toppling) failure caused by shear failure of the lower part composed of noncohesive soil remains poorly understood. The current paper investigates the diversity and coupli...     

Controls on the transition from meandering to straight channels in the wetlands of the Okavango Delta,Botswana

Previous studies of alluvial rivers have shown that channel patterns form a continuum controlled by interactions among factors such as gradient, discharge, sediment size, and bank strength. Data from channels in the permanent wetlands of the Okavango Delta add to these ?ndings by focusing on pattern transitions in channels with banks formed by sedges and grasses that are rooted in peat and underlain by unconsolidated sediment. Channels are well de?ned, and transport ?ne–medium sand as bedload between the vertical, vegetation‐lined banks. Water depths, velocities, grain sizes, and bankline vegetation do not vary signi?cantly or systematically downstream, but the permeable banks allow water to leak from the channels, contributing to an overall downstream decrease in discharge and width. In addition, as the Okavango River ?ows from the <12 km wide ‘Panhandle’ and splits into distributaries in the broader ‘Fan’, valley gradient steepens by c. 60 per cent. These downstream changes result in channel pattern adjustments. In the Panhandle, the Okavango River is a relatively wide (c. 30–100 m), actively meandering, sinuous channel (P > 2·0), but further downstream in the Fan, the narrower (<40 m) distributaries follow laterally stable, less sinuous (‘straight’) courses (P < 1·75). Some channel pattern discrimination diagrams based on simple indices of gradient, discharge, sediment size or stream power are inadequate for analysing the meandering–straight transition in the Okavango but Parker's (1976) approach, based on ratios of depth–width and slope–Froude number, accurately characterizes the transition. Our ?eld observations, combined with the results from previous experimental studies, suggest that in relatively wide channels (w/d > 10), thalweg meandering results in scour of the unconsolidated sediment at the bank base, leading to undermining and collapse of the vegetation, and to slow meander migration. However, as channels narrow downstream (w/d < 10) with discharge losses, proportionally increasing sidewall drag exerted by bankline vegetation suppresses thalweg meandering and bank scour, and channels follow stable, less sinuous courses. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new framework for modeling the migration of meandering rivers

Many models of river meander migration rely upon a simple formalism, whereby the eroding bank is cut back at a rate that is dictated by the flow, and the depositing bank then migrates passively in response, so as to maintain a constant bankfull channel width. Here a new model is presented, in which separate relations are developed for the migration of the eroding bank and the depositing bank. It is assumed that the eroding bank consists of a layer of fine‐grained sediment that is cohesive and/or densely riddled with roots, underlain by a purely noncohesive layer of sand and/or gravel. Following erosion of the noncohesive layer, the cohesive layer fails in the form of slump blocks, which armor the noncohesive layer and thereby moderate the erosion rate. If the slump block material breaks down or is fluvially entrained, the protection it provides for the noncohesive layer diminishes and bank erosion is renewed. Renewed bank erosion, however, rejuvenates slump block armoring. At the depositing bank, it is assumed that all the sediment delivered to the edge of vegetation due to the transverse component of sediment transport is captured by encroaching vegetation, which is not removed by successive floods. Separate equations describing the migration of the eroding and depositing banks are tied to a standard morphodynamic formulation for the evolution of the flow and bed in the central region of the channel. In this model, the river evolves toward maintenance of roughly constant bankfull width as it migrates only to the extent that the eroding bank and depositing bank ‘talk’ to each other via the medium of the morphodynamics of the channel center region. The model allows for both (a) migration for which erosion widens the channel, forcing deposition at the opposite bank, and (b) migration for which deposition narrows the channel forcing erosion at the opposite bank. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new model to analyse the impact of woody riparian vegetation on the geotechnical stability of riverbanks

We present a geotechnical stability analysis for the planar failure of riverbanks, which incorporates the effects of root reinforcement and surcharge for mature stands of woody riparian vegetation. The analysis relies on a new method of representing the root distribution in the soil, which evaluates the effects of the vegetation's position on the bank. The model is used in a series of sensitivity analyses performed for a wide range of bank morphological (bank slope and height) and sedimentological (bank cohesion and friction angle) conditions, enabling discrimination of the types of bank environment for which vegetation has an effect on bank stability. The results indicate that woody vegetation elements have a maximal impact on bank stability when they are located at the ends of the incipient failure plane (i.e. at the bank toe or at the intersection of the failure plane with the floodplain) and that vegetation has a greater effect on net bank stability when it is growing on low, shallow, banks comprised of weakly cohesive sediments. However, the magnitude of these effects is limited, with vegetation typically inducing changes (relative to non‐vegetated banks) in simulated factors of safety of less than 5%. If correct, this suggests that the well documented effects of vegetation on channel morphology must be related to alternative process mechanisms (such as the interaction of vegetation with river flows) rather than the mechanical effects of vegetation on bank failure, except in special cases where the equivalent non‐vegetated bank has a highly marginal stability status. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial and temporal variations in bank erosion on sand‐bed streams in the seasonally wet tropics of northern Australia

Bank erosion rates and processes across a range of spatial scales are poorly understood in most environments, especially in the seasonally wet tropics of northern Australia where sediment yields are among global minima. A total of 177 erosion pins was installed at 45 sites on four sand‐bed streams (Tributaries North and Central, East Tributary and Ngarradj) in the Ngarradj catchment in the Alligator Rivers Region. Bank erosion was measured for up to 3·5 years (start of 1998/99 wet season to end of 2001/02 wet season) at three spatial scales, namely a discontinuous gully (0·6 km²) that was initiated by erosion of a grass swale between 1975 and 1981, a small continuous channel (2·5 km²) on an alluvial fan that was formed by incision of a formerly discontinuous channel between 1964 and 1978, and three medium‐sized, continuous channels (8·5–43·6 km²) with riparian vegetation. The bank erosion measurements during a period of average to above‐average rainfall established that substantial bank erosion occurred during the wet season on the two smaller channels by rapid lateral migration (Tributary Central) and by erosion of gully sidewalls due to a combination of within‐gully flows and overland flow plunging over the sidewalls (Tributary North). Minor bank erosion also occurred during the dry season by faunal activity, by desiccation and loss of cohesion of the sandy bank sediments and by dry flow processes. The larger channels with riparian vegetation (East Tributary and Ngarradj) did not generate significant amounts of sediment by bank erosion. Deposition (i.e. negative pin values) was locally significant at all scales. Bank profile form and channel planform exert a strong control on erosion rates during the wet season but not during the dry season. Copyright © 2006 Commonwealth Government of Australia.     

Controls on Holocene denudation rates in mountainous environments under Mediterranean climate

The Mediterranean domain is characterized by a specific climate resulting from the close interplay between atmospheric and marine processes and strongly differentiated regional topographies. Corsica Island, a mountainous area located in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea is particularly suitable to quantify regional denudation rates in the framework of a source‐to‐sink approach. Indeed, fluvial sedimentation in East‐Corsica margin is almost exclusively limited to its alluvial plain and offshore domain and its basement is mainly constituted of quartz‐rich crystalline rocks allowing cosmogenic nuclide ¹⁰Be measurements. In this paper, Holocene denudation rates of catchments from the eastern part of the island of Corsica are quantified relying on in situ produced ¹⁰Be concentrations in stream sediments and interpreted in an approach including quantitative geomorphology, rock strength measurement (with a Schmidt Hammer) and vegetation cover distribution. Calculated denudation rates range from 15 to 95 mm ka^‐1. When compared with rates from similar geomorphic domains experiencing a different climate setting, such as the foreland of the northern European Alps, they appear quite low and temporally stable. At the first order, they better correlate with rock strength and vegetation cover than with morphometric indexes. Spatial distribution of the vegetation is controlled by morpho‐climatic parameters including sun exposure and the direction of the main wet wind, so‐called ‘Libecciu’. This distribution, as well as the basement rock strength seems to play a significant role in the denudation distribution. We thus suggest that the landscape reached a geomorphic steady‐state due to the specific Mediterranean climate and that Holocene denudation rates are mainly sustained by weathering processes, through the amount of regolith formation, rather than being transport‐limited. Al/K measurements used as a proxy to infer present‐day catchment‐wide chemical weathering patterns might support this assumption. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seepage erosion in layered stream bank material

Current stream restoration practices often require anthropogenic manipulation of natural field soils to reconstruct stream banks in the absence of stabilizing vegetation. For this study, researchers conducted laboratory experiments on reconstructed, non‐vegetated stream banks with layered soils experiencing seepage. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of seepage, pore water pressure, and bank geometry on erosion and bank stability of layered streambanks. The experimental design consisted of an intermediate‐size soil lysimeter packed with a sandy clay loam top soil and an underlying fine sand layer at three bank slopes (90°, 45° and 26°). Shallow groundwater flow and seepage resulted in bank failure of geometrically stable banks. Pop out failures, liquid deformation, and piping were all observed failure mechanisms in the underlying sand material, dependent on the bank angle. Groundwater seepage processes created small‐scale failures of the underlying sand leading to larger‐scale failures of the overlying sandy clay loam. The underlying sand layer eroded according to the initial bank angle and change in overburden loading. The overlying loam layer failed along linear failure planes. The gradually sloped bank (i.e. 26° slope) failed faster, hypothesized to be due to less confining pressure and greater vertical seepage forces. Researchers analyzed the laboratory experiments using the Bank Stability and Toe Erosion Model, version 4·1. The model calculated an accurate shear surface angle similar to the failure angle observed in the lysimeter tests. The model predicted failure only for the undercut 90° bank slope, and indicated stable conditions for the other geometries. Steeper initial bank slopes and undercut banks decreased the bank factor of safety. The observed failure mechanisms and measured saturation data indicated an interaction between overburden pressure, seepage forces, and bank slope on bank stability. Future bank stability modeling would benefit by incorporating lateral seepage erosion and soil liquefaction prediction calculations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Instability investigation of cantilevered seacliffs

Wave action is a fundamental mechanism in seacliff erosion, whereby wave undercutting creates an unstable cantilevered seacliff profile and can lead to large catastrophic cliff failures, thus threatening coastal infrastructure. This study investigated the instability of two such failures that occurred in Solana Beach, California, by combining terrestrial LIDAR scanning, cantilever beam theory and finite element analysis. Each landslide was detected by evaluating the surface change between subsequent high resolution digital terrain models derived from terrestrial LIDAR data. The dimensions of failed cantilever masses were determined using the surface change measurements and then incorporated into failure stress analysis. Superimposing stress distributions computed from elastic cantilever beam theory and finite element modeling provided a method to back‐calculate the maximum developed tensile and shear stresses along each failure plane. The results of the stress superposition revealed that the bending stresses caused by the cantilevered load contributed the majority of stress leading to collapse. Both shear and tensile failure modes were investigated as potential cliff failure mechanisms by using a comparison of the back‐calculated failure stresses to material strengths found in laboratory testing. Based on the results of this research, the tensile strength of the cliff material was exceeded at both locations, thus causing the cliffs to collapse in tension. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Streambank dewatering for increased stability

Streambank erosion is often the dominant source of sediment leaving modified watersheds. Mass failure of high, steep banks is one of the most serious forms of streambank erosion. The risk of a given bank experiencing mass failure is a function of bank height, angle, and soil strength, which is governed by soil moisture. Two methods for bank dewatering were tested in adjacent sections of streambank bordering a deeply incised channel in northern Mississippi: a low‐cost pump system and subsurface horizontal drains. Pore water pressures (both positive and negative pressures, or matric suction) were continuously monitored for 2 years at the pumped site, at an adjacent untreated control section, and for 1 year at the site stabilized with horizontal drains. Resulting data were used to calculate a time series of the factor of safety using a computer model. Over the course of two wet seasons, average bank retreats for the control and pumped plots were 0·43 and 0·21 m, respectively. More limited monitoring revealed that the site with passive drains retreated about 0·23 m. At the pumped site pore water pressure was 3–4 kPa lower than at the control site during the most critical periods. Accordingly, computed factors of safety were above the failure threshold at the pumped site, but fell below unity at the control site on 11 occasions over the period of observation. Similarly, the drained site displayed generally lower pore water pressure and higher safety factors except for two events when drains were evidently overwhelmed with the volume of local surface and subsurface flows. These results suggest, but do not prove, that bank dewatering promoted lower rates of bank retreat and higher levels of stability since the three sites had slight differences in soils, geometry and boundary conditions. Initial cost of the dewatering treatments were significantly less than orthodox bank stabilization measures, but operation and maintenance requirements may be greater. Published in 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Morphodynamic effects of vegetation life stage on experimental meandering channels

Previous studies have demonstrated that riparian vegetation leads to channel transformation from a multi-bar to a single-thread channel planform. However, it still remains unclear how the presence of pioneer and mature vegetation affects the morphodynamics of single-thread meandering rivers. In this study, we therefore investigated the effects of vegetation strength on the morphodynamic evolution of an experimental meandering channel. Three physical laboratory experiments were conducted using alfalfa sprouts in different life stages – no vegetation, immature vegetation, and mature vegetation – to simulate different floodplain vegetation strengths. Our results demonstrate that vegetation plays a key role in mediating bank erosion and point-bar accretion, and that this is reflected in both the evolution of the channel bed as well as the sediment flux. The presence of mature vegetation maintained a deep, single-thread channel by reducing bank erosion, thereby limiting both channel widening and sediment storage capacity. Conversely, an unvegetated floodplain led to channel widening and high sediment storage capacity. Channel evolution in the unvegetated scenario showed that the active sediment supply from outer bank erosion led to slightly delayed point-bar accretion on the inner banks due to helical flow, deflecting the surface flow toward the outer banks and causing further erosion. In contrast, in the immature vegetation scenario, the outer banks were also initially eroded, but point-bar accretion did not clearly progress. This led to a greater width-to-depth ratio, resulting in a transition from a single- to a multi-thread channel with minor flow paths on the floodplain. The experimental results suggest that the eco-morphodynamic effects of young (low-strength) and mature (high-strength) vegetation are different. Notably, low-strength, early-stage vegetation increases channel complexity by accelerating both channel widening and branching, and therefore might promote the coexistence of multi-bars and pioneer vegetation.     

Subaerial river bank erosion processes and their interaction with other bank erosion mechanisms on the River Arrow,Warwickshire, UK

River bank erosion occurs primarily through a combination of three mechanisms: mass failure, fluvial entrainment, and subaerial weakening and weathering. Subaerial processes are often viewed as ‘preparatory’ processes, weakening the bank face prior to fluvial erosion. Within a river basin downstream process ‘domains’ occur, with subaerial processes dominating the upper reaches, fluvial erosion the middle, and mass failure the lower reaches of a river. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that (a) subaerial processes may be underestimated as an erosive agent, and (b) process dominance has a temporal, as well as spatial, aspect. Bank erosion on the River Arrow, Warwickshire, UK, was monitored for 16 months (December 1996 to March 1998) using erosion pins. Variations in the rate and aerial extent of erosion are considered with reference to meteorological data. Throughout the first 15 months all erosion recorded was subaerial, resulting in up to 181 mm a^?1 of bank retreat, compared with 13 to 27 mm a^?1 reported by previous researchers. While the role of subaerial processes as ‘preparatory’ is not contended, it is suggested that such processes can also be erosive. The three bank erosion mechanisms operate at different levels of magnitude and frequency, and the River Arrow data demonstrate this. Thus the concept of process dominance has a temporal, as well as spatial aspect, particularly over the short time‐periods often used for studying processes in the field. Perception of the relative efficacy of each erosive mechanism will therefore be influenced by the temporal scale at which the bank is considered. With the advent of global climate change, both these magnitude–frequency characteristics and the consequent interaction of bank erosion mechanisms may alter. It is therefore likely that recognition of this temporal aspect of process dominance will become increasingly important to studies of bank erosion processes. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Morphodynamics of a bedrock‐alluvial meander bend that incises as it migrates outward: approximate solution of permanent form

In meandering rivers cut into bedrock, erosion across a channel cross‐section can be strongly asymmetric. At a meander apex, deep undercutting of the outer bank can result in the formation of a hanging cliff (which may drive hillslope failure), whereas the inner bank adjoins a slip‐off slope that connects to the hillslope itself. Here we propose a physically‐based model for predicting channel planform migration and incision, point bar and slip‐off slope formation, bedrock abrasion, the spatial distribution of alluvial cover, and adaptation of channel width in a mixed bedrock‐alluvial channel. We simplify the analysis by considering a numerical model of steady, uniform bend flow satisfying cyclic boundary conditions. Thus in our analysis, ‘sediment supply’, i.e. the total volume of alluvium in the system, is conserved. In our numerical simulations, the migration rate of the outer bank is a specified parameter. Our simulations demonstrate the existence of an approximate state of dynamic equilibrium corresponding to a near‐solution of permanent form in which a bend of constant curvature, width, cross‐sectional shape and alluvial cover distribution migrates diagonally downward at constant speed, leaving a bedrock equivalent of a point bar on the inside of the bend. Channel width is set internally by the processes of migration and incision. We find that equilibrium width increases with increasing sediment supply, but is insensitive to outer bank migration rate. The slope of the bedrock point bar varies inversely with both outer bank migration rate and sediment supply. Although the migration rate of the outer bank is externally imposed here, we discuss a model modification that would allow lateral side‐wall abrasion to be treated in a manner similar to the process of bedrock incision. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Channel erosion along the Carmel river,Monterey county,California

Historic maps, photographs, and channel cross-sections show that the channel of the Carmel River underwent massive bank erosion, channel migration, and aggradation in a major flood in 1911, then narrowed and incised by 1939. The channel was stable until 1978 and 1980, when bank erosion affected some reaches but not others. The narrowing and incision were in response to a lack of major floods after 1914 and construction in 1921 of a dam that cut off sediment supply from the most actively eroding half of the basin. Localized erosion in 1978 and 1980 occurred during low magnitude events along reaches whose bank strength had been reduced by devegetation. These events illustrate that the stability of a fluvial system can be disrupted either by application of a large erosive force in a high magnitude event (the 1911 flood) or in a low magnitude event, by reducing the resistance to erosion (bank devegetation). The Carmel River is a potentially unstable system. Its discharge and slope characteristics place it near the threshold between meandering and braided. On the Lower Carmel, the presence of bank vegetation can make the difference between a narrow, stable meandering channel and a wide shifting channel with braided reaches.     

Soil moisture causes dynamic adjustments to root reinforcement that reduce slope stability

In steep soil‐mantled landscapes, the initiation of shallow landslides is strongly controlled by the distribution of vegetation, whose roots reinforce the soil. The magnitude of root reinforcement depends on the number, diameter distribution, orientation and the mechanical properties of roots that cross potential failure planes. Understanding how these properties vary in space and time in forests remains a significant challenge. Here we test the hypothesis that spatio‐temporal variations in root reinforcement along a hillslope occur as a function of topographic soil moisture gradients. To test this hypothesis we compared root reinforcement measurements from relatively dry, divergent noses to relatively wet, convergent hollows in the southern Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina, USA. Our initial results showed that root reinforcement decreased in areas of higher soil moisture because the tensile strength of roots decreased. A post hoc laboratory experiment further demonstrated that root tensile strength decreased as root moisture content increased. This effect is consistent with other experiments on stem woods showing that increased water content in the cell wall decreases tensile strength. Our experimental data demonstrated that roots can adjust to changes in the external root moisture conditions within hours, suggesting that root moisture content will change over the timescale of large storm events (hours–days). We assessed the effects of the dynamic changes in root tensile strength to the magnitude of apparent cohesion within the infinite slope stability model. Slopes can be considerably less stable when precipitation‐driven increases in saturated soil depth both increase pore pressures and decrease root reinforcement. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stochastic erosion of composite banks in alluvial river bends

The erosion of composite river banks is a complex process involving a number of factors including fluvial erosion, seepage erosion, and cantilever mass failure. To predict the rate of bank erosion with these complexities, a stochastic bank erosion model is suitable to define the probability distribution of the controlling variables. In this study, a bank erosion model in a river bend is developed by coupling several bank erosion processes with an existing hydrodynamic and morphological model. The soil erodibility of cohesive bank layers was measured using a submerged jet test apparatus. Seasonal bank erosion rates for four consecutive years at a bend in the Brahmaputra River, India, were measured by repeated bankline surveys. The ability of the model to predict erosion was evaluated in the river bend that displayed active bank erosion. In this study, different monsoon conditions and the distribution functions of two variables were considered in estimating the stochastic bank erosion rate: the probability of the soil erodibility and stochastic stage hydrographs for the nth return period river stage. Additionally, the influences of the deflection angle of the streamflow, longitudinal slope of river channel, and bed material size on bank erosion rate were also investigated. The obtained stochastic erosion predictions were compared with the observed distribution of the annual‐average bank erosion rate of 45 river bends in the Brahmaputra River. The developed model appropriately predicted the short‐term morphological dynamics of sand‐bed river bends with composite banks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.