GEOG3461: RIVER DYNAMICS

• Any Level 2 Geography module

• NONE

• NONE

• Rivers are a fundamental part of the environment, removing water and sediment from the land to the oceans and in doing so they maintain fluvial ecosystems, provide essential resources and generate geohazards which threaten human populations. This module aims to provide students with an understanding of the interrelations between form and process in rivers, and the implications for how channels adjust to various kinds of natural and anthropogenic forcing.

• Principles and Key Processes
• Flow in river channels: fluid motion, turbulence, flow resistance, secondary circulation, forces on the bed, variation in space and time
• Sediment transport: river sediment characteristics, entrainment, transport rates, selective transport and grain sorting
• Applications - River Channel Environments and Reach Scale Behaviour
• Case studies of variations in channel form (e.g. riverbed armouring, downstream fining, bedforms) and reach-scale behaviour (e.g. sediment budgets, aggradation and degradation) including effects of direct and indirect impacts on river systems. Case studies can include: gravel-bed rivers, bedrock channels, mountain streams, laboratory flume models, numerical models, and vegetation in rivers

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Explain the basics of fluid motion and sediment transport.
• Distinguish characteristic types of channel sediments and morphology (channel form)
• Understand how the dynamics of rivers can be modified by direct and indirect impacts

Subject-specific Skills:

• Relate general principles of river dynamics to specific applications including case studies of channel change / modification
• Be aware that river behaviour varies according to time and space scales, and can affect and be affected by direct and indirect human activity
• Measurement of hydrological and sedimentological data in a river.

Key Skills:

• Measurement of flow and particle size.
• Analysing flow and sediment measurements
• Perform simple hydraulic and statistical calculations
• Undertake error and uncertainty analysis
• Advanced literacy, numeracy, graphical presentation
• Scientific report writing.

• Lectures will help students understand basic principles and get to grips with the recommended reading selected from the scientific literature. Some will be case studies, to reinforce students' understanding of basic principles and show how they can be applied.
• Students will be required to undertake field work to measure hydraulic and sedimentological data.
• Students will be required to submit a report on the analysis of river flow and sediment measurements for summative assessment
• The written examination will complement the practical-based assessment by assessing student understanding of basic principles and generic types of channel behaviour, and their ability to explain things clearly and support their argument with appropriate reference to literature, examples and case studies

Discussions during lectures and on the field day. Discussion in data analysis clinics. Reading assignment and formative tutorial.

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