Sediment transport and topographic evolution of a coupled river and river plume system: An experimental and numerical study

Sediment transfer from rivers to the ocean is the fundamental driver of continental sedimentation with implications for carbon burial, land use dynamics, and unraveling global climate change and Earth history from sedimentary strata. Coastal rivers are dynamically coupled to their offshore plumes at the river mouth creating regions of nonuniform flow that can dictate patterns of erosion and deposition both onshore and offshore. However, there are limited experimental and modeling studies on sediment transport and morphodynamics of coupled river and river plume systems and their response to multiple flood events. To address this knowledge gap, we developed a quasi‐2‐D, morphodynamic numerical model and conducted exploratory flume experiments in a 7.5 m long flume where a 10 cm wide river channel was connected to a 76 cm wide “ocean basin.” Both the numerical model and the flume results demonstrate that (1) during low‐discharge flows, backwater hydrodynamics cause spatial‐flow deceleration and deposition in the river channel and the offshore plume area, and (2) during high flows the water surface is drawn down to sea level, resulting in spatial‐flow acceleration and bed scour. During high‐discharge flows, we also found that the offshore river plume self‐channelized owing to both levee formation and bed scour. Our study suggests that coastal rivers may be in a perpetual state of morphodynamic adjustment and highlights the need to link rivers and river plumes under a suite of flow discharges to accurately predict fluvio‐deltaic morphodynamics and connectivity between fluvial sediment sources and marine sinks.