Articles | Volume 13, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-13-723-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-13-723-2025
Research article
 | 
25 Aug 2025
Research article |  | 25 Aug 2025

Effect of grain-sorting waves on alternate bar dynamics: implications of the breakdown of the hydrograph boundary layer

Soichi Tanabe and Toshiki Iwasaki

Cited articles

An, C., Fu, X., Wang, G., and Parker, G.: Effect of grain sorting on gravel bed river evolution subject to cycled hydrographs: Bed load sheets and breakdown of the hydrograph boundary layer, J. Geophys. Res.-Earth, 122, 1513–1533, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JF003994, 2017. 
An, C., Moodie, A. J., Ma, H., Fu, X., Zhang, Y., Naito, K., and Parker, G.: Morphodynamic model of the lower Yellow River: flux or entrainment form for sediment mass conservation?, Earth Surf. Dynam., 6, 989–1010, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-6-989-2018, 2018. 
Andrews, E. D.: Downstream effects of Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River, Colorado and Utah, Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 97, 1012–1023, https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1986)97%3C1012:DEOFGR%3E2.0.CO;2, 1986. 
Ashida, K., Egashira, S., Liu, B., and Umemoto, M.: Sorting and Bed Topography in Meander Channels, Annuals of Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, 33, 261–279, 1990 (in Japanese). 
Bankert, A. R. and Nelson, P. A.: Alternate bar dynamics in response to increases and decreases of sediment supply, Sedimentology, 65, 702–720, https://doi.org/10.1111/sed.12399, 2018. 
Download
Short summary
We try to understand how the sediment supply from the upstream river reach affects the downstream river morphology using a numerical model. If the supplied sediment is composed of a variety of size classes of particles, a small bed wave that is composed of mainly fine particles (sorting wave) can propagate to downstream for a very long distance. However, the presence of bars suppresses the effect of the sorting wave greatly, and thus the sediment supply has a limited role in the downstream river morphology.
Share