Fluvial Processes: Meandering and Braiding

River configurations in plan view are highly variable. Under specific environmental and hydraulic conditions, the type of planform geometry of a river is controlled by the sediment transport and its capacity of the river. Alluvial river configurations are in general categorized as straight, meandering, and braided rivers. While long, straight rivers[aut]Straight rivers seldom occur in nature, meandering and braided rivers are common. This chapter focuses on the characteristics of meandering and braided rivers. The turbulence phenomenological approach provides the underlying mechanism of the onset of meandering of a straight river[aut]Straight rivers. Mathematical models of flow in a curved channel, meandering rivers, and their stability analysis are presented.