Re-constructing the river bed using the streamline-generation method

Abstract

River bed reconstruction plays an essential part in supporting the hydrodynamic simulation and understanding the morphological processes of a river. The streamlines can be solved using Laplace equations. The equation is first numerically solved in a computational environment and then adapted to the whole considered physical field to solve the resulting streamlines in a physical domain. One of the goals of this research is to determine the bottom line of the riverbed, and doing this through a field survey is very expensive, the methods presented in this research help a lot in reducing costs. By determining the concave line, the path of the flood in the river bed is determined, so one of the practical achievements and efficiencies of this research is flood trending at a low cost. In the present study, the bottom line is determined for the meandering Qinhe River, a distributary of the Yellow River, China, and Gaz River, located in Khuzestan Province, Iran. The method is based on the following steps:•Reconstruction of 2D river based on the Laplace equation.•Use the Finite Element Method to solve streamlines in the physical domain.•Use the Finite Difference Method to solve streamlines in the physical domain.