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The Rakaia River in the South Island of New Zealand is braided over most of its course. A braided river (also called braided channel or braided stream) consists of a network of river channels separated by small, often temporary, islands called braid bars or, in British English usage, aits or eyots.
These channels are classified as a composite form of which the individual channel belts may have braided, meandering or straight channels. Although similar to, and even encompass other channel types, anastomosed rivers are their own entity and have just begun to be studied by geologists, revealing that much is still unknown.
The channel type developed depends on stream gradient, riparian vegetation and sediment supply. Braided rivers tend to occur on steeper gradients where there is a large supply of sediment for braid bars, while single thread sinuous channels occur where there is a lower sediment supply for point bars.
A mid-channel bar, is also often referred to as a braid bar because they are often found in braided river channels. Braided river channels are broad and shallow and found in areas where sediment is easily eroded like at a glacial outwash, or at a mountain front with high sediment loads.
Braid bars often originate from remnants of point bars or the growth of mid-channel unit bars in braided rivers. [1] These features typically form in rivers with a high sediment load, within channels characterized by a large bed load and easily-eroded bank material. [2] There are several mechanisms of formation.
The terms river morphology and its synonym stream morphology are used to describe the shapes of river channels and how they change in shape and direction over time. The morphology of a river channel is a function of a number of processes and environmental conditions, including the composition and erodibility of the bed and banks (e.g., sand, clay, bedrock); erosion comes from the power and ...
Natural channels are formed by fluvial process and are found across the Earth. These are mostly formed by flowing water from the hydrological cycle, though can also be formed by other fluids such as flowing lava can form lava channels. Channels also describe the deeper course through a reef, sand bar, bay, or any shallow
Within the delta region, the river split into multiple braided channels and formed a complex estuary and terrestrial ecosystems. The use of water upstream and the accompanying reduction of freshwater flow has resulted in the loss of most of the wetlands of the area, as well as drastic changes to the aquatic ecosystems - an ecosystem collapse.