River morphology is the study of the nature and shape of the river’s channel and valley as they change over time. If you have ever looked at a river and wondered why some areas appear deep and slow while others are shallow and fast, or why this particular bank is eroding but not that one, or why some rivers are rather winding and bendy but others are much straighter, then you too have wondered about the river morphology.

Scientists and engineers work with river processes have a daunting task of working with systems that are very large in scale yet exhibit the relevant mechanisms at smaller, localized scales. In my recent projects, I have sought to rectify this by utilizing “near-census” (sub-meter) datasets, which allows us to analyze the system at any spatial scale and not lose anything to resolution issues. There is an emerging paradigm shift to near-census data that is revealing significantly different outcomes than single-scale or nested-hierarchical frameworks.