What does a high sinuosity mean?
A measure of the degree of meandering within a river, defined as the ratio of stream length to valley length. Tightly meandering rivers travel much further over a given length of valley and so they have high sinuosity.
What is meant by Sinuosity index?
Sinuosity, sinuosity index, or sinuosity coefficient of a continuously differentiable curve having at least one inflection point is the ratio of the curvilinear length (along the curve) and the Euclidean distance (straight line) between the end points of the curve.
How do you work out sinuosity?
Sinuosity is the ratio of river length (distance traveled if you floated down the river) divided by straight length line (bird’s flight distance, i.e. from point A to B). The greater the number, the more tortuous (strongly meandering) the path the river takes.
How do I find my Sinuosity index?
The sinuosity index is calculated by taking continuous points along the entire length of the river channel using the formula CL/VL where CL is the channel length between two points on a river, and valley length is the straight line distance between the same two points.
What can sinuosity tell us about a stream?
Sinuosity is the ratio of stream length to valley length. It can also be described as the ratio of valley slope to channel slope. Meander geometry characteristics are directly related to sinuosity, consistent with the principle of minimum expenditure of energy.
What is sinuosity of a stream?
What is sinuosity used for?
Sinuosity, however, carries the least weight of all the criteria used to delineate Level II morphologies. It is used primarily as a channel plan-form and mapping indicator for Level I classification, since it is based on easily observable and interpreted patterns.
What kind of channel would have a sinuosity of 1?
Straight streams
Straight streams will have a sinuosity of 1, whereas meandering streams …
What is the sinuosity of a stream?
Sinuosity. Sinuosity is the ratio of stream length to valley length. It can also be described as the ratio of valley slope to channel slope.
What is the sinuosity of a straight line?
Sinuosity is the length of the channel divided by the straight line distance between the channel end points (Figure 1).