Morphodynamics of the River Rhine

4 10 2017

Sediment budget analysis of the Rhine in the period 1991-2010 - from source to mouth

The actual and future morphological development of large rivers has major effects on society. A sound understanding of the morphological development requires a basin-scale sediment budget analysis that considers the grain size specific morphodynamics along the river channel.
Sediment fluxes in the Rhine are discontinuous due to regional sinks and sources, leading to a large variability of the sediment fluxes along the river channel. From source to mouth, the Rhine traverses four sections with fundamentally different morphodynamic behaviour: the Alpine, impounded, free-flowing and delta section. The sediment budget derived in this study provides a good data basis for improving numerical prediction models, optimizing nourishment, dredging and monitoring strategies, and for discovering knowledge gaps and setting research agendas. The report is available under 'publications' as report nr. II-22.