Interplay among river meandering, discharge stochasticity and riparian vegetation

SummaryRiver sinuosity has an impact on riparian vegetation through different processes. The obvious one is the increment of the length of the riparian corridor due to meandering-induced river elongation. However, additional more subtle aspects occur, ascribable to topographic changes induced by meandering dynamics and to their impact on the stochastic structure of the river stage time series. It follows that the increment in vegetation biomass is not simply equal to the increment in the river length. In this work, we investigate this complex picture using suitable bio-geomorphological models through the study of an exemplifying case. This approach can suggest some novel tools for design the restoration of riparian corridors.