Cutting off the meanders

I ended up experimenting with making meanders today. I found that if you add just a little bit of extra "sand" to the lateral accretion areas (e.g. point bars) you end up producing very strong meanders. Particularly if you reduce the slope of the table.


Here's a shot of a few oxbow lakes being formed mid-run.


Here's a quick time-lapse video that demonstrates how adding extra material to the point bars rapidly increases the sinuosity of the stream. Keep in mind that the only thing I did here was to add sediment to areas of accretion. I didn't dig any channels or remove any material. I did have to add sediment along the floodplain in a few places to compensate for the change in gradient as the sinuosity increased.