RIVERMorph Tips

Determining Sinuosity

Need to determine sinuosity? Well, there are two different approaches.

First, if your data set is an ESRI shape file, all you need to do is select the particular stream you are interested in and click on the Sinuosity button. It?s that easy!

Or, if your data is not an ESRI shape file or if the shape file extends beyond the reach you are interested in, you will need to digitize the stream first. To do this, click on the Digitize Line and Determine Sinuosity button, and click in the viewing area to trace the pattern of the stream of interest. Then, once you are done digitizing, double click and click yes. Just a few simple steps and you?re on your way!

Narrow belt width? Unexpected utility lines in the way? RIVERMorph can help! Check out the Results page in the Natural Channel Design module, the slider control will let you adjust the deflection angle and decrease belt width to analyze hundreds of channel configurations in minutes.

Want an easy way to measure facet slopes? Use RIVERMorph?s measurement tool on your longitudinal profile graph. Just click anywhere on the graph and drag your mouse to activate distance, depth and slope measurements. The program automatically stores your measurements and calculates minimum, average and maximum values for you to populate your dimensionless ratios database. This graphical method will save you time!

Ever get back into the office and plot up your survey data only to find out that you misread a water depth? RIVERMorph makes it easy to smooth out this data so that you no longer have water flowing uphill! Use the graphical water surface editing tool on the profile graph to drag water surface points to where you know they should be.

Do you use a total station to collect survey data? If so, RIVERMorph provides an interface to easily extract longitudinal profile and cross section data from your x,y,z data. Just provide the correct point identification tags and use the scatter plot to export the series into RIVERMorph's cross section or profile editor. A few simple mouse clicks will transform your total station data into useful cross sections or profiles.

A lot of restoration projects have side-inlets that may have to be relocated or resized to accommodate your new meandering river. RIVERMorph provides you with a method for sizing side inlets in the Resistance Equation Calculator. You can use the pipe diameter and roughness scroll bars to evaluate hundreds of combinations in seconds! The calculator will tell you what size pipe is needed for the given slope and roughness criteria.

In RIVERMorph 2.0 you can select an option to ignore side channel depressions in the cross section calculations. The toolbar has a new feature allowing you to specify two stations and an elevation. If you select this option RIVERMorph will overlay a new graph that ignores depressions between the two stations. Use this feature when off-channel depressions are not hydraulically linked back to the channel in the downstream direction.

RIVERMorph 2.0 comes with an overlay feature to allow multiple cross sections to be viewed on the same graph. Use this feature for monitoring reports and to overlay existing and proposed cross sections. With a click of a button, you can even calculate the difference in area between the two sections!

RIVERMorph GIS will simplify the measurement of meander wavelength, belt width, radius of curvature and sinuosity! With a click of the mouse, develop dimensionless ratios data from file formats such as ESRI shape files, CAD drawing files, MrSID image files, JPEG files and many others! You can even set your scale on aerial photographs by simply clicking the button to the far right of the menu bar and tracing a line of known length on the image.

How can you tell if a particular gravel bed stream is a reference reach? There are often conflicting opinions about how to define a reference reach. You can use RIVERMorph to help you make this determination using the following procedure:

Use the Pfankuch Channel Stability Rating: a reference reach should have a ?good? rating.
Use the Stream Visual Assessment Protocol: a reference reach should have a ?good? or ?excellent? rating.
Use the sediment transport competency calculator (shown here) to estimate the mean depth required for transporting the largest particle found in the bar (or other depositional feature). Compare this mean depth to the value from a riffle cross section, if the values are close then you may have a reference reach. If the values differ greatly then the reach is probably not a reference reach.

RIVERMorph 2.0 can help you analyze hydraulic properties by creating graphs of selected variables at each cross section. For example, you can use the Discharge and Sediment Transport Wizard to calculate shear stress as a function of depth (or elevation). Then go to the ?Stages? page in the Cross Section editor and click ?Graph?. You can then select variables from a long list of hydraulic calculations. Here is a plot of Elevation vs. Shear Stress.

In the Rosgen Classification of Natural Rivers, values of entrenchment ratio can vary by plus or minus 0.2 and values for width to depth ratios can vary by plus or minus 2.0. When you use RIVERMorph to perform a classification, you can use the slider controls shown here to adjust the entrenchment ratio and/or width to depth ratio within these ranges to see if the classification changes. The classification value may change when your reach is on the border between two categories. This allows you to evaluate multiple combinations in a matter of seconds.

Did you know you could export typical sections from the NCD module into the Cross Sections module? This is useful when you want to calculate hydraulics by stage or evaluate sediment transport through the design reach. Just click the ?XS Exp? button and provide a cross section name. RIVERMorph will add a node to the impacted reach with the geometry from the NCD output. Now you can overlay the design cross section on the impacted reach?s cross sections and compute cut/fill quantities.

Case Study - Meadow Creek

This shows use of RIVERMorph in a real-world example. We?ve developed a hypothetical project and will break down each step of the design solution. It's being released in a series of e-mail and all pieces will be present when the series is finished.
Case study link.

Need to store notes with your field data? RIVERMorph Version 2 provides you with a convenient place to store various notes for each reach data set. Simply left click on the notes node in the River Tree View and a note pad will appear. The note pad can be easily copied and pasted into other documents and even includes a date and time stamp!

Determining Sinuosity

Need to determine sinuosity? Well, there are two different approaches.

First, if your data set is an ESRI shape file, all you need to do is select the particular stream you are interested in and click on the "Sinuosity" button. It?s that easy!

Or, if your data is not an ESRI shape file or if the shape file extends beyond the reach you are interested in, you will need to digitize the stream first. To do this, click on the "Digitize Line and Determine Sinuosity" button, and click in the viewing area to trace the pattern of the stream of interest. Then, once you are done digitizing, double click and click "yes". Just a few simple steps and you?re on your way!

Picture This! People say pictures are worth a thousand words, and they just may be right! Photographs are an invaluable way to visually document the condition of a stream for both assessment and monitoring purposes. In the cross section tool, you can keep track of your photos by loading the path to the photo location. This allows you to keep all information related to a cross section in one convenient place for later viewing or printing!

Particle Size RIVERMorph allows you to view and print a graph of particle size distributions for both Wolman pebble counts as well as sieve analyses. You can also view multiple pebble counts and sieve analyses on a single graph by using the overlay feature. Simply click on the Overlay button and select the data sets you would like to view. The plots can be easily printed or can be saved as a graphic file for insertion into a report or presentation. Just one of the many ways that RIVERMorph can save you time in the design process!

Selecting Standard Sieve Size RIVERMorph makes data management easy by providing a list of every standard size in the sieve analysis tool. To load your data, click on the "Select Sieve Sizes" button and check each applicable sieve size for you data set. Common river restoration sieve sizes can be quickly loaded by clicking on the "Standard Sieves" button. Be sure to only select the sieves used in your particular data set. Once the sieves you would like to use are loaded, click the "Apply" button and the "Close" button to begin entering your data. It?s that simple!

Longitudinal Profiles Made Easier RIVERMorph 2.1 now enables you to export total station data points tagged as bankfull (BKF) to your profile, along with thalweg and water surface shots?and you don?t have to take any extra steps! In the Total Station Survey Data module, simply click on any thalweg point to select the entire thalweg and then click the Export Series button. As long as your bankfull shots are tagged correctly, RIVERMorph automatically calculates the stationing, saving you even more time processing data!

Download USGS Gage Data

RIVERMorph makes downloading USGS gage data easy! Simply go to the RIVERMorph?s gage analysis tool and click on the "Navigate to USGS Website " button. Locate and select the gage site you are interested in and click on the "Download " button. RIVERMorph will automatically populate the gage analysis form. If you want to perform a flood frequency analysis, hit the calculate button. It?s that easy!

Confirming Your Stream Reach Type

To quickly evaluate the Rosgen stream classification of a reach, simply:

Add a cross section in RIVERMorph
Enter your survey data into the cross section data grid
Set the bankfull elevation using the graph tab
Click the Summary tab to display calculations based on the bankfull elevation

The broad level stream classification will be displayed just below the table of standard output. This quick classification is useful to help confirm your bankfull elevation when you have already observed what your stream type should be. For example, if the stream looks like an "E" but the quick classification gives you an "F" then maybe the bankfull elevation was in error.

Calculations Made Easy

Simplify your calculations with RIVERMorph?s "Sediment Transport Equation Wizard". The Sediment Transport Equation Wizard easily calculates discharge, velocity, shear stress, sediment load, etc., for a cross section and produces a table of calculated values.

You can select from a variety of flow and sediment transport equations and even graph the resulting data! Want to know how your project will impact shear stress? Use the wizard to create graphs of shear stress versus discharge. It?s that easy!

Double-Check Your Design: Watershed-Specific Regional Curves

If you are restoring a reach, building "regional curves" within your watershed allows you to compare the existing stream dimensions to your design. This graph was developed for a restoration project in a 1 square mile drainage area. The data was collected upstream and downstream from the project on reaches with the same stream type. The best fit produced by this graph verified the design output.

RIVERMorph makes this verification easy with the Regional Curve tool. Simply collect several cross-sections at riffle locations throughout the watershed and enter the cross-sections into RIVERMorph to calculate the bankfull properties. Use the Regional Curve tool to output a graph. It?s that simple!

What is the best way to collect total station data? Make it easy on yourself at the desktop by carefully collecting your total station data in the field. RIVERMorph can process the data and let you extract cross sections and profiles. To make it easy for you to extract data from the survey, try to collect data in the following order:

Collect all miscellaneous topographic shots first.
Collect the channel thalweg profile starting upstream and working your way downstream.
Collect the left bank data starting upstream and working your way downstream.
Collect the right bank data starting upstream and working your way downstream.
Collect cross section data beginning with the most upstream cross section and collect data from left to right looking downstream.

It is also sometimes useful to break the survey up into multiple nodes in RIVERMorph. If possible, one survey data set should be created for each instrument set-up. Also, remember to label your data points properly!