ANRV273-EA34-11 ARI 21 March 2006 17:32 Bed Material Transport and the Morphology of Alluvial River Channels Michael Church Department of Geography, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z2; email:
[email protected] Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. Key Words 2006. 34:325–54 First published online as a alluvial sedimentation, channel geometry, fluvial bedforms, fluvial Review in Advance on geomorphology, sediment transport January 16, 2006 The Annual Review of Abstract Earth and Planetary Science The morphology of an alluvial river channel is the consequence of sediment trans- is online at by University of British Columbia Library on 01/22/07. For personal use only. earth.annualreviews.org port and sedimentation in the river. Morphological style is determined chiefly by the caliber and quantity of sediment delivered to the channel, although modulated doi: 10.1146/ annurev.earth.33.092203.122721 by channel scale. Yet the relations between sediment transport and river morphol- Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2006.34:325-354. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org ogy have received only limited, qualitative attention. In this review, the problem is Copyright c 2006 by ! Annual Reviews. All rights studied by defining sediment transport regimes on the basis of the Shields number, a reserved nondimensional measure of the capacity of the channel to move sediment of a given 0084-6597/06/0530- caliber. The problem is also approached from an inverse perspective by which the 0325$20.00 quantity and character of sediment deposits are used to infer details about the vari- ation of sediment transport and sedimentation along a channel.