PPT Slide
Notes:
In channels with only neck cutoffs the sinuosity becomes very high -- about 3.5. Most meandering channels do not have such high sinuosity due to the occurrence of occasional chute cutoffs across bends. Howard (1996, op. Cit.) introduced a probabilistic model of chute cutoffs, in which the probability of a chute cutoff depends upon several properties of the channel, including the degree to which the bend would be shortened, the angle of the bend, the flow velocity near the bank at the location of potential cutoff, and the floodplain elevation across the potential site of the cutoff. The channels from (a) to (e) have increasing assumed probability of chute cutoffs and correspondingly less sinuous planform. Chute cutoffs occur most frequently in wide meandering channels with low, non-cohesive banks. Such channels are often also transitional between meandering and braided behavior.