Highly Meandering Streams

[SeanWatt]

Hi, same stream as previous posts, but additional question. There are portions of this creek that are highly meandering. To the point that it is impossible to draw a set of cross-sections that do not cross themselves, or the creek only once. The floodplain itself is reasonably straight, so if I ignore the meandering, and just rely on the fact that at higher flows the bulk of the flow will be in the floodplain and not the channel, then I could just run my cross-sections perpendicular to the floodplain, and it should work out.

But this will be a problem if I’m trying to use the model to run lower flow events.

Anyone else dealt with this issue?

Thanks,

Sean

[Chris G.]

Yes. I would say in my experience enough persistence and creativity will allow you to model just about any kind of meander, if you have enough “doglegs” in your cross sections. However, even if you are able to draw cross sections through the heavy meander, it won’t necessarily accurately reflect flow lines at all flow rates. In that case, there’s just no getting around haveing two (or more) different geometries.

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