Channel change and flood events since 1783 on the regulated river tay, Scotland: Implications for flood hazard management

Abstract

AbstractAn analysis of old maps and documentary sources reveals that major changes in river channel planform have occurred over the last 200 years on the River Tay system, Scotland, UK. Reaches showing natural river channel planform change, however, are relatively small and a stable planform is characteristic of many sections of the river. River planform instability appears to be controlled by channel bed slope, sediment load and the enhanced vulnerability of former river channel courses to erosion. Flood protection embankments built in the 19th and 20th centuries modified unstable multichannel wandering gravel bed river sections to narrower single‐channel reaches, with limited lateral migration. On the River Tummel, 20th century impoundment has caused further geomorphological change in response to clearwater erosion close to the dam and aggradation processes within the regulated river downstream, but isolation of the effects of impoundment from those of channelization are problematic. An examination of the geomorphic effects of a high magnitude flood event in 1990 and historical accounts of earlier large floods reveal that the 1990 flood was the third largest since 1800 in the study area. Despite river regulation and bank protection the zones naturally characterized by instability are still susceptible to planform changes causing flood embankments to be breached, channel shifts and development of gravel bars.