Author(s): Kilian Mouris; Martin Struck; Martin Hammerle; Regina Patzwahl
Linked Author(s): Kilian Mouris
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: The German Lower Rhine is a heavily engineered waterway where dredging, scour protection, and recurrent sediment nourishments have shaped riverbed conditions for decades. To assess how these interventions have influenced riverbed morphology, a comprehensive sediment sampling campaign was conducted in 2020 and compared with historical datasets. The present-day riverbed is dominated by coarse and medium gravel, with marked lateral heterogeneity and only subtle longitudinal trends. A pronounced coarsening is evident over the past decades, stabilizing after 2012, which suggests a managed dynamic equilibrium. These changes align spatially with sediment nourishments, scour protections, and active transport corridors. The results demonstrate that sediment samples provide a powerful diagnostic tool for identifying management signals in the riverbed and for interpreting natural morphodynamic processes. While granulometry alone cannot fully characterize system behavior, the multi-decadal perspective gained from sediment sampling is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of sediment management strategies in trained gravel-bed rivers.
Year: 2026