ABSTRACT Understanding the scour process around bridge piers and investigating approaches to reduce these phenomena is an important issue for engineers. Side-by-side piers cause lower scour depth compared to a single pier with the same diameter. In this study, the application of downstream bed sill and continuous footing to control the scour depth around single piers and two side-by-side piers is investigated experimentally. The results show that by using a continuous footing with a thickness equal to the pier diameter, the scour depth in front of the pier is reduced by 50% and 55% for single pier and side-by-side piers, respectively. Moreover, when the continuous footing thickness is doubled, no scour depth is observed in front of the pier. Additionally, incorporating a downstream bed sill adjusted to the pier results in a reduction of approximately 30% in scour depth in front of the piers.