Meander restoration contributes to the flow energy reduction, the river systems’ overall stability enhancement and a number of ecological services production. The spatial and temporal impacts of this technique on the river's flow and sediment behaviour are critical topics that practitioners should respond to. Because of the scale and cost of such projects, it is difficult to make informed decisions about the optimal siting, scale, and linked-up benefits of restoration projects based solely on real-world case studies. Digital models such as landscape evolution models, on the other hand, can be used to test numerous alternate futures to make more informed decisions concerning the allocation of scarce resources in landscape planning contexts, revealing a range of potential outcomes of anthropogenic in-terventions within dynamic river systems. This can provide proper technical support for restoration proposals. This study utilises CAESAR-Lisflood to simulate the impact of various meander reconstruc-tion scenarios on the downstream geomorphology in terms of erosion, deposition, channel migration patterns and sinuosity and braiding variations. Moreover, project size and location in the catchment are used to determine the most effective investment of limited resources by analysing the long-term, cumulative impacts of the scenarios. The initial results suggest that restorations in the lower reach of the channel would be more beneficial to the downstream channel’s stability than in the upper reach of the channel. Furthermore, multiple smaller restoration projects benefit more than fewer, larger projects of equivalent length. These findings derived from digital experimentation could help decision-makers and practitioners implement plans to optimise project scoping and placement in the catchment-scale planning phase to conduct meander restoration, in particular, where there are cost limitations and property ownership issues.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)