Rivers are constantly responding to disturbances ranging from long-term, broad spatial scale disturbances like tectonic uplift or continental glaciation, to more recent disturbances associated with modern climate change and anthropogenic impacts, to evolving channel morphology and local scour. Many systems are responding to multiple disturbances, often simultaneously, which can have cascading impacts on river morphodynamics.
Critical infrastructure, including bridges, dams, levees, flow regulation and river training structures, is inevitably related to the morphodynamics of rivers, estuaries, and coastal areas. While large-scale morphological changes are widely recognized, they are primarily driven by local processes such as flow variability, turbulent structures, sediment entrainment, and continuous water-bed interactions. When infrastructure is introduced into dynamic water environments, it often leads to significant and frequently unintended morphological consequences. Understanding these drivers and responses, including infrastructure-related disturbances, is essential for sustainable water management, risk reduction, and long-term resilience in the context of climate change.
This session explores river response to disturbances of all scales throughout time and space. We welcome field-based research, numerical modeling, theoretical approaches, physical experimentation, and hybrid approaches. We particularly encourage contributions on:
• River management and restoration approaches that utilize geomorphic processes and geomorphic history
• Impacts of built and hybrid structures on flow, sediment transport, and morphology
• Flow-structure interactions and morphodynamic responses to infrastructure under changing conditions
• Advances in remote sensing, monitoring, and AI-based modeling for morphology quantification
• Climate change adaptation, resilience, and risk management in riverine, estuarine, and coastal environments
Richard Mason