Process-product relationships in a large river: The Río Paraná, Argentina

D.R. PARSONS; M.L. AMSLER; P.J. ASHWORTH; J.L. BEST; R.J. HARDY; S.N. LANE; I.A. LUNT; A.P. NICHOLAS; O. ORFEO; A. REESINK; S. SANDBACH; G. SAMBROOK SMITH; R.N. SZUPIANY

Santa Fe - Argentina

Simposio; 6th IAHR Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics - RCEM 2009; 2009

Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hidricas - Universidad Nacional del Litoral

Knowledge concerning the morphodynamics and sedimentology of multi-channel rivers is primarily based on analysis of small-scale channels (less than 1 km wide), with little known about whether such knowledge is transferable to the world’s largest rivers. This is despite de fact there are good theoretical reasons such transfer should be questioned. For example, force-balance considerations show a dependence on width-depth ratio that does not scale linearly with flow discharge. These scale effects are likely to impinge on our modeling and management strategies and also on subsurface sedimentology of these large continental-scale river systems. This paper reports on a combined ‘process-product’ investigation in one of the world’s largest multi-thread rivers – the Rio Paraná - and highligths notable differences between the process - product relationships with channel scale.