Riverbed Management by Changing Reach Scale Channel Configuration

Abstract

Many rivers experienced channel alternation, riverbed degradation and vegetation expansion result from artificial disturbance. Thus, works of channel reconstruction carried out as a river restoration such as channel widening, excavation or making meandering. This study presents possibility of channel widening by changing reach scale channel configuration (RSCC). RSCC and their historical changes in the Kizu River during 1961 and 2010 were plotted in biplot dimension of width/depth ratio and specific stream power. And based on their historical changes, we predict resultant RSCC after manipulation of channel width. According to results, most of recent channel types were distributed in the range of low width/depth ratio. However, channel widening about 1.8-2.0 times in upper and lower site could be changed to the range of high width/depth ratio having high potentials of biodiversity in the Kizu River.