Abstract
Goal:
1. To study and quantify the interactions between riparian vegetation, channel morphology, and flow dynamics.
2. To investigate how river systems self-organize as a result of these interactions.
3. To investigate spatial and dynamic scaling in braided rivers with and without vegetation.
Reseachers: Michal Tal, Chris Paola, Elizabeth Tilman (Water Resources, Univ. of MN), Efi Foufoula-Georgiou (Civil Engineering, Univ. of MN)
Result:
Ongoing experiments at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory are designed to isolate the effects of vegetation on braided stream dynamics. These experiments show how a fully braided stream with a noncohesive bed transitions to a single-thread (meandering) system when continuously forced with vegetation. Time-lapse photography and measurements of bed topography, flow depth, sediment output, and flow velocities enable us to study and quantify the morphodynamics of the system associated with this change.
Michal Tal