Large wood hydraulics - a fluvial process of growing interest

In the last decade, the perception of large wood in rivers has shifted from a hazard perspective towards a valuable and required component of the river ecosystem. Consequently, there is a demand to quantify and predict the effects of large wood on flow, morphology and retention.

The research programme ‘Large Wood Hydraulics’ investigates the flow and turbulence characteristics of instream large wood. Within the programme, field measurements and lab experiments are conducted and cover different wood types (tree morphology, branching pattern), their position / orientation in the cross-section and single or multiple elements (wake interference). Field measurements were carried out in river Mulde, Germany within the BMBF-project ‘Wilde Mulde’ and flume experiments in the hydraulics lab of  TU Vienna.

The aim of the study is to predict the effects of different wood configurations to promote the use of wood in river restoration schemes.