What are the Techniques for Measuring Riverbank Erosion?

The causes of riverbank erosion:

Flood: Bangladesh is a riverine country. About 700 rivers including tributaries flow through Bangladesh constituting a good waterway of total length around 24,140 kilometers. Most of the country’s land is formed through silt brought by the rivers. In our country, every year the people are affected by floods, especially for a rainy reason. This is the most crucial reason for riverbank erosion.
Deforestation: Deforestation refers to the cutting down trees and makes a forest non-forest. Trees can hold on the soil aggregates. But when the trees are cut down, the soil particles become loose and for this reason, the soil of the river bank can be eroded gradually.
Heavy Rainfall: We are in monsoon climate zone. We face heavy rainfall in the rainy season. This extreme rainfall is also an important cause of riverbank erosion. Where there is no well-constructed levee of a river, the soil can be eroded because of heavy rainfall at that time. Source: https://www.earthreview.org

Deforestation

Natural Resources Conservation

Erosion

Constitution and Bylaws

Forest

William F. Hansen

There are a variety of techniques to measure on-site or estimate. LiDAR coverage is a substantial tool to georeference channel locations, help identify remotely bank heights, slopes and could be used to document change with time. The WEPP (Water Erosion prediction project) may be useful. To actually measure at locations and then expand estimation to larger channel networks with substantial field surveys, the methods by Dr. David Rosgen using a combination of bank pins, channel chains, Rivermorph software, and his BANCS procedures, some estimation based on field data could be helpful. Rosgen’s paper on j hooks and cross vanes helps to identify approaches other than levees to reduce near bank stress. He has a substantial amount on the internet, references, papers and a few books.

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