Analysis of changes in planform geometry of a mountain river and its course on the valley floor since the 1870s and delimiting an erodible river corridor

Abstract

The Biała is one of the gravel-bed rivers of the Polish Carpathians that were severely affected by human activity over the last century, with river channelization and channel incision resulting in degradation of the hydromorphological quality of the river (Hajdukiewicz et al., 2017) and its ecosystem (Wyżga et al., 2013) and increasing economic losses during floods (Hajdukiewicz et al., 2016). Restoration of the river was thus necessary to mitigate these negative consequences of human impacts on the river. One of the measures used in river restoration is the establishment of so-called erodible river corridor: a part of the valley floor in which the river is allowed to develop its channel freely, while migrating within its corridor (Piégay et al., 2005; Wyżga and Zawiejska, 2012). Establishing an erodible river corridor is particularly useful in the reaches where a future impact of lateral channel migration on private lands and infrastructure and settlements will be minimal.