Bedforms evolution in the Vistula River mouth during extreme flood event, southern Baltic Sea

Abstract

Results of bathymetric surveys conducted to examine changes of sand dunes geometry in the Vistula River mouth before, during and after the extreme flood event are presented. A total of 2076 dunes were analysed based on a series of bed elevation profiles obtained along the centreline of about 3.3 km length. Low-steepness dunes characterized by the mean lee-side slopes milder than β<10° are fully dominant at low flows. In contrast, at high hydrology, nearly 50% of dunes indicate β>10°. Dune height and length are substantially out of phase with progressive changes of water discharge exposing a well-pronounced anti-clockwise hysteresis. Distinct behaviour of dune dimensions reflected in increasing of dune steepness H/λ of about 3-fold and decreasing of about 4-fold were observed during rising and falling discharges, respectively. The bed roughness due to dunes presence showed changes of about 10-fold during the both of limbs and is found to be in range of about kdunes=(1/5÷3/5)Hmean. At the mesoscale region, spectra followed sufficiently by the ‘–3 power law’ for low hydrology, with steeper spectrum slopes close to ‘–4’ during moderate and high water discharges. With the development of the flood, potential of flow separation phenomena was increased of about 9-fold, from 2.2% at the flood beginning phase up to 20% at the flood peak. The obtained results could be used for the improvement of the hydraulic numerical models in sand-bed rivers to predict bedforms evolution, flow resistance and turbulence as well as water levels for proper river system management during flood events.