Natural and regulated streams stability and self-regulation

Abstract

Flow dynamic processes are more steady in natural river beds than in regulated ones. The article presents the K. V. Grishanin criterion M to evaluate bed stability and self-regulation issues for natural and regulated streams. Assessing the natural streams by Grishanin's coefficient it was found that dynamic equilibrium is established and is close to one in natural rivers. According to the research it was found that natural river beds are stable enough (criterion M values ranging from 0.82 to 0.91), while sliming and silting processes are regulated ones (criterion M values ranging from 1.38 to 1.47). Comparing the data obtained by other authors researches show similar regularities, which are confirmed by K. V. Grishanin bed stability criterion M application to evaluate Lithuanian rivers stability.