Abstract
River islands are vital geomorphic units in alluvial rivers, and the variation of their morphology and position plays a significant role in regulating flow-sediment transport and channel stability. Based on the theories of minimum energy dissipation theory of fluid movement and river morphodynamics, this study uses the river islands in anabranching channels to analyze the relationship between the shape coefficient of river island and the flow-sediment dynamics under stable equilibrium conditions. Results indicate that the river islands could adjust their lengths and widths to reach an appropriate allocation of flow diversion ratio and sediment separation ratio in the two anabranching channels to ensure flow-sediment being smoothly transported downstream and achieve the minimum energy dissipation. Under the minimum energy dissipation condition of flow-sediment transport balance, the ratio of “sediment separation ratio” to “flow diversion ratio” in short and straight branching channels is between 1 and 1.1. When the proportion of flow-sediment transport reaches its maximum, the steady island morphology coefficient is approximately 0.2; that is, the island length is five times the width. We verify the steady island morphology coefficients using two typical islands in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and find the relative error is within ±3%.
Published Version
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