Understanding the Complexity and Dynamics of Anastomosing River Planform: A Case Study of Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh

Abstract

The Brahmaputra is one of the world's largest rivers, ranking fifth in terms of average discharge. Therefore, to dissipate it's enormous energy, it is severely braided with multiple complex pathways. Although, this river is typically classified as a braided river, however due to its multi-channel properties over alluvial plains, it has recently been classified as an anastomosing river. Additionally, the morphology of the Brahmaputra River is random in nature due to its high flow variability and bank erodibility. It's anastomosing planform varies in response to seasonal water and sediment waves, resulting in an extremely complex morphology. The goal of this study is to investigate the anastomosing planform entropy of the Brahmaputra river as a measure of disorder and how it relates to the energy expenditure by the river systems on alluvial landscape.