Rivers Try Harder. Reversed “Differential Erosion” as Geological Control of Flood in the Large Fluvial Systems in Poland
1
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Warsaw University of Life Sciences SGGW-WULS, ul. Nowoursynowska 166, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
2
The Main School of Fire Service, ul. Słowackiego 52/54, 01-629 Warsaw, Poland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Salvatore Ivo Giano
Water 2021, 13(4), 424; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040424
Received: 18 December 2020 / Revised: 29 January 2021 / Accepted: 2 February 2021 / Published: 5 February 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fluvial Geomorphology and River Management)
We study cross-sections on the Detailed Geological Map of Poland (SMGP) to find a geologic and geomorphic pattern under river valleys in Poland. The pattern was found in 20 reaches of the largest Polish rivers (Odra, Warta, Vistula, Narew, and Bug) located in the European Lowland, in the landscape of old (Pleistocene, Saalian) glacial high plains extending between the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) moraines on the North and the Upland on the South. The Upland was slightly folded and up-faulted during Alpine orogeny together with the thrust of Carpathian nappes and the uplift of Tatra Mts. and Sudetes. The found pattern is an alluvial river with broad Holocene floodplain and the channel developed atop the protrusion of bedrock (Jurassic, Cretaceous limestones, marlstones, sandstones) or non-alluvial, cohesive, overconsolidated sediments resistant to erosion (glacial tills, lacustrine or “ice-dammed lake” clays) of Cenozoic (Paleogene, Neogene, Quaternary—Elsterian). We regard the sub-alluvial protrusion as the limit of river incision and scour. It cannot be determined why the river flows atop these protrusions, in opposition to “differential erosion”, a geomorphology principle. We assume it is evidence of geological flood control. We propose an environmental and geomorphological framework for the hydrotechnical design of instream river training.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
flood control; scour; incision control; alluvial substrate; rock resistance; planation surface; glaciotectonic
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Bihałowicz, J.S.; Wierzbicki, G. Rivers Try Harder. Reversed “Differential Erosion” as Geological Control of Flood in the Large Fluvial Systems in Poland. Water 2021, 13, 424. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040424
AMA Style
Bihałowicz JS, Wierzbicki G. Rivers Try Harder. Reversed “Differential Erosion” as Geological Control of Flood in the Large Fluvial Systems in Poland. Water. 2021; 13(4):424. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040424
Chicago/Turabian StyleBihałowicz, Jan S.; Wierzbicki, Grzegorz. 2021. "Rivers Try Harder. Reversed “Differential Erosion” as Geological Control of Flood in the Large Fluvial Systems in Poland" Water 13, no. 4: 424. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040424
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit