Alvise Finotello

• PhD, Earth Sciences - MS, Civil Engineering (Hydraulics) - BS, Civil Engineering
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Padua

In September 2022, an exceptional flood in the Misa River basin (Eastern Apennines, Italy) resulted in the unusual deposition of gravelly lobes on terraces up to 6 m higher than the riverbed. These deposits suggest that coarse bed sediments were transported in suspension rather than as bedload, as typically occurs under competent flow conditions. T...

Plain Language Summary The planforms of tidal channels wandering through coastal wetlands are constantly changing. As channels migrate laterally, some are cut off, becoming hydrodynamically inactive and eventually abandoned. However, the effects of channel abandonment on ecosystem functioning remain poorly understood, particularly regarding wetland...

Downstream changes of fluvial styles and related grain size triggered by localised tectonically‐induced changes in riverbed gradient are still poorly understood, especially in terms of their impact on the accumulation of alluvial successions. In this study, we analyse the morpho‐sedimentary response of rivers crossing multiple fault‐controlled subs...

Point bars are emblematic deposits of meandering rivers. Classical facies models that define their architecture and sedimentology are essentially based on rivers with low to moderate peak discharge variability. However, many global rivers experience high peak discharge variability, which may significantly impact point‐bar sedimentological features....

Unvegetated tidal mudflats are typically dissected by networks of channels that arguably exert a prominent role in the ecomorphodynamic evolution of these environments. However, the intricate processes of tidal flows propagating through tidal channels and across mudflat platforms remain inadequately understood, particularly concerning the localized...

Channel meandering is ubiquitous in tidal marshes, yet it is either omitted or weakly implemented in morphodynamic models. Here we propose a novel numerical method to simulate channel meandering in tidal marshes on a Cartesian grid. The method calculates a first‐order flow by considering the balance between pressure gradient and bed friction. To ac...

Parallel tidal channel systems, characterized by commonly cross-shore orientation and regular spacing, represent a distinct class of tidal channel networks in coastal environments worldwide. Intriguingly, these cross-shore oriented channel systems can develop in environments dominated by alongshore tidal currents, for which the mechanisms remain el...

The study of meandering patterns created by geophysical flows is important for a number of fundamental and applied research topics, including stream and wetland restoration, land management, infrastructure design, oil exploration and production, carbon sequestration, flood-hazard mitigation, and planetary paleoenvironmental reconstructions. This vo...

Stabilization of riverbanks by vegetation has long been considered necessary to sustain single-thread meandering rivers. However, observation of active meandering in modern barren landscapes challenges this assumption. Here, we investigate a globally distributed set of modern meandering rivers with varying riparian vegetation densities, using satel...

Bend cutoff is a fundamental process shaping meandering rivers. Despite the widely accepted differentiation between neck and chute cutoffs, a significant knowledge gap persists regarding the factors responsible for the occurrence of each cutoff regime and the specific conditions triggering the regime. Here, we used field and photogrammetric data de...

Plain Language Summary The sinuous channels that wander through tidal coastal wetlands look like meandering rivers. However, features of alluvial floodplains that indicate active river meandering over time, such as oxbow lakes and meander cutoffs, are difficult to find in tidal settings. Their apparent absence has led researchers to infer that tida...

River deltas are among the largest depositional features on Earth and are ecologically and economically important. However, continued increases in climate extremes, population growth, and human-induced subsidence pose a serious threat to the sustainability of many of the World's river deltas. It is becoming increasingly clear how hard engineering m...

Channel meandering is ubiquitous in tidal marshes, yet it is routinely omitted in morphodynamic models. Here we propose a novel numerical method to simulate channel meandering in tidal marshes on a Cartesian grid. The method calculates a first-order flow by considering the balance between pressure gradient and bed friction. To account for flow mome...

Channel meandering is ubiquitous in tidal marshes, yet it is routinely omitted in morphodynamic models. Here we propose a novel numerical method to simulate channel meandering in tidal marshes on a Cartesian grid. The method calculates a first-order flow by considering the balance between pressure gradient and bed friction. To account for flow mome...

Tidal channel systems arising from morphodynamic interactions exhibit a suite of diverse morphological configurations. A prevalent type is represented by linear dendritic channels formed by single-thread streams aligned roughly parallel or subparallel to each other in the cross-shore direction. Despite their ubiquity, the processes driving the form...

Similarities in planform dynamics between tidal and fluvial meandering channels contrast with the apparent lack in coastal wetlands of lateral-migration features like meander cutoffs and oxbow lakes, which led to the broad interpretation that tidal and fluvial meanders differ morphodynamically. We analyzed meander neck cutoffs from diverse tidal an...

Tight interplays between physical and biotic processes in tidal salt marshes lead to self‐organization of halophytic vegetation into recurrent zonation patterns developed across elevation gradients. Despite its importance for marsh ecomorphodynamics, however, the response of vegetation zonation to changing environmental forcings remains difficult t...

Tidal salt marshes are widespread along the World's coasts, and are ecologically and economically important as they provide several valuable ecosystem services. In particular, their significant primary production, coupled with sustained vertical accretion rates, enables marshes to sequester and store large amounts of organic carbon and makes them o...

Over time, alluvial coastal plains are formed as rivers evolve and alter the landscape by eroding and depositing various morpho-sedimentary bodies. These bodies contribute to creating morphological, lithological, and topographic heterogeneities in the floodplain, which can in turn influence river dynamics by providing prefer- ential areas for erosi...

Many present-day alluvial floodplains display traces of abandoned meandering channel belts developed during the past millennia (i.e. mid- to late Holocene). Deposits of these ancient rivers represent preferential pathways for groundwater flows and related environmental issues, such as contaminant propagation or saltwater intrusion in coastal areas....

This volume focuses on similarities and differences of meandering patterns across various landscapes and scales. It explores how different processes are expressed in the kinematics, morphology, sedimentology and stratigraphic architecture of meandering streams. Results from various fields and environments are combined to describe the state-of-the-s...

Extensive loss of salt marshes in back‐barrier tidal embayments is ongoing worldwide as a consequence of land‐use changes, wave‐driven lateral marsh erosion, and relative sea‐level rise compounded by mineral sediment starvation. However, how salt‐marsh loss affects the hydrodynamics of back‐barrier systems and feeds back into their morphodynamic ev...

Extensive loss of salt marshes in back-barrier tidal embayments is undergoing worldwide as a consequence of land-use changes, wave-driven lateral marsh erosion, and relative sea-level rise compounded by mineral sediment starvation. However, how salt-marsh loss affects the hydrodynamics of back-barrier systems and feeds back into their morphodynamic...

Arctic regions are disproportionately affected by atmospheric warming, with cascading effects on multiple surface processes. Atmospheric warming is destabilizing permafrost, which could weaken riverbanks and in turn increase the lateral mobility of their channels. Here, using timelapse analysis of satellite imagery, we show that the lateral migrati...

River meandering controls the age of floodplains through its characteristic paces of growth and eventual cutoff of channel bends, forming oxbows. Hence, floodplain-age distributions should reflect a river’s characteristic size and migration rate. This hypothesis has been previously tested in numerical simulations, yet without systematic comparisons...

Neck cutoffs in meandering rivers have long been thought to occur when the neck width (b) approximates the mean width of the parent channel (W). Empirical evidence for this paradigm is scarce, however, because tracking late‐stage evolution of meander bends prior to cutoff at sufficient temporal resolutions is difficult in natural rivers. In this st...

Meandering channels are ubiquitous features in intertidal mudflats and play a key role in the eco‐morphosedimentary evolution of such landscapes. However, the hydrodynamics and morphodynamic evolution of these channels are poorly known, and direct flow measurements are virtually nonexistent to date. Here, we present new hydroacoustic data collected...

Tidal channel networks (TCNs) dissect ecologically and economically valuable salt marsh ecosystems. These networks evolve in response to complex interactions between hydrological, sedimentological, and ecological processes that act in tidal landscapes. Thus, improving current knowledge of the evolution of salt-marsh TCNs is critical to providing a...

Highly sinuous, high‐amplitude meander bends shaped by unidirectional, downstream‐oriented flows in alluvial rivers are predominantly upstream‐skewed, offering an opportunity to infer flow direction from meander planforms. In contrast, it remains unclear whether tidal meander bends formed by bidirectional, potentially asymmetric flows display simil...

Tidal channels form the pathways for tidal currents to propagate and distribute clastic sediments and nutrients, thus providing a primary control on tidal‐landscape ecomorphodynamics. Most tidal channels in both estuarine and lagoonal environments have a tendency to meander, yet very few studies exist that investigate the full spectrum of processes...

Sedimentary sand bodies that originated by the evolution of meandering channels such as point bars, host surficial aquifers, providing preferential pathways for groundwater flow in mud-dominated floodplains. These aquifers are a major source of freshwater, yet they can suffer from different environmental issues such as pollution and salt-water intr...

We present a new bidimensional, spatially-explicit ecological model describing the dynamics of halophytic vegetation in tidal saline wetlands. Existing vegetation models employ relatively simple deterministic or stochastic mechanisms, and are driven by local environmental conditions. In the proposed model, in contrast, vegetation dynamics depend no...

Coastal flooding prevention measures, such as storm-surge barriers, are being widely adopted globally because of the accelerating rise in sea levels. However, their impacts on the morphodynamics of shallow tidal embayments remain poorly understood. Here, we combine field data and modeling results from the microtidal Venice Lagoon (Italy) to identif...

Sedimentological and architectural features of meandering subtidal channels are relatively unexplored, and their deposits are commonly investigated based on facies models set up for intertidal meandering channels. The Venice Lagoon (northern Adriatic Sea, Italy) is affected by a micro-tidal regime and hosts a dense network of active and buried tida...

Many salt-marsh systems worldwide are currently threatened by drowning and lateral erosion that are not counteracted by sufficient sediment supply. Here we analyze the response of a salt-marsh system to changes in sediment availability and show that, contrary to what would have been expected, marsh dynamics in the vertical plane can be insensitive...

Salt marshes are highly dynamic and important ecosystems that dampen impacts of coastal storms and are an integral part of tidal wetland systems, which sequester half of all global marine carbon. They are now being threatened due to sea-level rise, decreased sediment influx, and human encroachment. This book provides a comprehensive review of the l...

The characterization of ancient fluvial‐channel bars informs predictions of sedimentary facies distribution, and hence they are critical for interpreting river morphodynamics through time. Within active fluvial channels, sediment storage occurs along the banks or along their axial portion, generating bank‐attached or mid‐channel bars, respectively....

Tidal currents can propagate tens of kilometres landward from the shoreline, forming dense networks of meandering channels, which drain vegetated areas and range in width from tens to hundreds of metres. Sedimentary products of these inland tidal channels are poorly documented in the stratigraphic record, as most studies on tidal processes occurrin...

Establishing critical comparisons between fluvial- and tidal-channel morphodynamics is a major goal in the study of coastal landscapes. Freely migrating meandering rivers are known to produce laterally extensive, sand-prone point-bar bodies which commonly exhibit width:thickness ratios up to 250. Meandering channels are widespread in tidal channel...

River bends occasionally meander to the point of cutoff, whereby a river shortcuts itself and isolates a portion of its course. This fundamental process fingerprints a river's long‐term planform geometry, its stratigraphic record, and biogeochemical fluxes in the floodplain. Although meander cutoffs are common in fast‐migrating channels, timelapse...

The planform evolution of tidal meanders is driven by interactions between channel morphology and periodically reversing tidal flows, which feed back into the development of erosional and depositional patterns. However, the paucity of quantitative data has so far undermined detailed analyses about the geomorphic effects of tidal flows within tidal...

The links between flood frequency and rates of channel migration are poorly defined in the ephemeral rivers typical of arid regions. Exploring these links in desert fluvial landscapes would augment our understanding of watershed biogeochemistry and river morphogenesis on early Earth (i.e. prior to the greening of landmasses). Accordingly, we analys...

Salt marshes are among the most common morphological features found in tidal landscapes and provide ecosystem services of primary ecological and economic importance. However, the continued rise in relative sea level and increasing anthropogenic pressures threaten the sustainability of these environments. The alarmingly high rates of salt marsh loss...

Meandering channels extensively dissect fluvial and tidal landscapes, critically controlling their morphodynamic evolution and sedimentary architecture. In spite of an apparently striking dissimilarity of the governing processes, planform dimensions of tidal and fluvial meanders consistently scale to local channel width, and previous studies were u...

Tidal landscapes are extensively characterized by the presence of meandering channels, the latter being important for the ecomorphodynamic evolution of these environments. It remains unclear whether changes in the relative strength of maximum flood and ebb currents (i.e., tidal flow asymmetries), together with the widespread presence of lateral tri...

Although in tidal point bars, the point-bar brink (i.e. the break-in-slope between bar top and bar slope) and the channel thalweg (i.e. the deepest part of the channel) are thought to shift horizontally toward the outer bank, the occurrence of stable to slow-migrating channels in high-aggradational settings, e.g. salt marshes, is likely to promote...

Tide‐influenced deltas are among the largest depositional features on Earth and are ecologically and economically important as they support large populations. However, the continued rise in relative sea‐level threatens the sustainability of these landscapes and calls for new insights on their morphological response. While field studies of ancient d...

The present study aims at improving current understanding of the sedimentation of subtidal point bars, analyzing interaction between tidal currents and waves in shaping a submerged meander bend of the microtidal Venice Lagoon (Italy), and it is based on coupling of sedimentological studies, geophysical analyses and numerical modelling. The Venice L...

As Holocene river deltas continue to experience sea-level rise, sediment carried by distributary channels counteracts delta-plain drowning. Many deltas worldwide are subject to tidal action, which strongly affects the morphology of distributary channels and could also influence their mobility. Here we show, through physical laboratory experiments,...

Significance Meandering tidal channel networks play a central role in the ecomorphodynamic evolution of the landscapes they cut through. Despite their ubiquitous presence and relevance to sedimentary and landscape features, few observations of tidal-meander evolution exist, and we lack a full understanding of the governing processes. Field analyses...

The widespread distribution of tidal creeks and channels that undertake meandering behaviour in modern coasts contrasts with their limited documentation in the fossil record, where point-bar elements arising from the interaction between a mix of both fluvial and tidal currents are mainly documented. The sedimentary products of tidal-channel bend ev...

The Afar region is a triangular area located at the triple junction between the African, Somalia, and Arabian plates, which are currently diverging at different rates. Currently, the extension vector is roughly oriented in a NE-SW direction in the Afar, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in respect to Arabia plate, whereas the Nubian–Somalian divergence, ev...

Although meanders are ubiquitous features of the tidal landscape, the architectural geometries of tidal point bar deposits are relatively unexplored and commonly investigated on the basis of facies models developed for their fluvial counterparts. The present study aims at improving current understanding of tidal point bar deposits developed in salt...

A number of studies demonstrates that fluvial meander bends can evolve following two basic mechanisms: expansion and translation. Expansion leads to the increase in point-bar radius and to the shift of the bend apex transversely to the valley axis. Translation keeps the point-bar radius as constant and leads to downstream migration of the bend apex...

Although meanders are ubiquitous features of the tidal landscape, the description of their hydrodynamics and morphodynamic evolution, as well as the analysis of their planimetric shape and morphometric characteristics, are still in their infancy. Moreover the internal architecture of tidal meanders is relatively unexplored and is commonly investiga...

Meandering patterns are universal features of tidal landscapes, which exert a great influence on the dynamics of tidal channel networks and on the stratigraphy of intertidal platforms. Despite their importance in landscape evolution and their ubiquity, tidal meanders have received less attention when compared to their fluvial counterparts. Quite a...

The Cádiz Bay (SW Spain) is a semidiurnal low-inflow estuary that harbors port facilities. Its morphology is characterized by a seaward outer bay, an inner bay with extensive tidal marshes, and a channel connecting both. Human activities (i.e. new port terminal and channel deepening) are profoundly changing of the morphodynamics of the Bay. To asse...

Although meanders are ubiquitous features of the tidal landscape, very few papers have analyzed their morphodynamic evolution or internal architecture, which is commonly analyzed basing on facies models developed for fluvial meander bend deposits. Towards the goal of providing new insight into the morphodynamic evolution of tidal meanders, together...