Natural lowland rivers tend to erode their banks and migrate across an alluvial surface. In our new paper, we use data from experiments to develop a model for lateral channel migration rates of braided streams. Surprisingly, we find that the direct influence of sediment discharge on migration rates is relatively weak, and that the main controls on migration rates are the water discharge and the channel bank height. Of course, the channel bank height itself is influenced by water and sediment discharges – this is where our results need to be combined with models for the long-profile evolution of streams, which leaves exciting new research avenues ahead.|

Bufe, A., Turowski, J.M., Burbank, D.W., Paola, C., Wickert, A.D., Tofelde, S. (accepted) Controls on the lateral channel migration rate of braided channel systems in coarse non-cohesive sediment. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Journal Link