Bridge construction and river channel morphology—A comprehensive study of flow behavior and sediment size alteration of the River Chel, India

Abstract

Human has always modified its surroundings for better adaptation which include the building of urban landscapes, dams, and engineering constructions like bridges and other infrastructures. It has been unveiled from the study of River Chel that when the rail bridge was constructed before 1913, the natural width of the river was nevertheless maintained but the problem was initiated and after the road bridge construction in 1970s when the river width was minimized,the morphological changes started in a large scale. Such modifications have affected nature as well as human communities both positively and negatively. This paper will try to portray the evolution of channel shifting and changes of sediment size regime that the River Chel is experiencing due to the construction of bridges across the middle part of its course. So, this study is concerned about the changes in channel pathway since last 100 years and field-based hydrological parameters and sediment size analysis reveals some distinct changes in the channel planform with alteration of sediment size regime. Simulation of the hydraulic modeling in HEC-RAS specifies the probable affected area with bridges and without bridges in both upstream and downstream of the river course. Hence, the study unveils the alteration of the river hydrology and sediment size caused due to anthropogenic effects and impact of such flow analysis has been evaluated through the bridge scour calculation by CUS method. The discussion concludes that the Odlabari road bridge construction (after 1970) has modified the normal hydrological behavior of the river with a higher probability of bank erosion in downstream and floods in upstream resulting river bottleneck condition.