ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Freshwater Science
This article is part of the Research TopicFrontiers in European Freshwater Science: Addressing Stress, Biodiversity, and Restoration in a Changing WorldView all 3 articles
Restoring Sediment Continuity in Large Regulated Rivers: A 2D-informed 1D Morphodynamic Framework Applied to the Hungarian Danube
Provisionally accepted
- 1Faculty of Civil Engineering, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary
- 2Budapesti Muszaki es Gazdasagtudomanyi Egyetem, Budapest, Hungary
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Sustainable sediment management in large, regulated rivers requires modelling tools that can reliably predict long-term morphological trends while remaining computationally efficient for scenario testing. This study presents a simplified one-dimensional (1D) morphodynamic framework parameterized using effective flow conveyance and sediment transport widths extracted from a calibrated two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic model. The approach corrects a key limitation of conventional 1D models, which implicitly assumes that the entire cross-section is hydraulically and morphologically active. The method was applied to a 100-km gravel-bed reach of the Hungarian Danube, where sediment deficit caused by the upstream hydropower-plant impoundment and extensive training works have caused persistent bed degradation, reaching 5 m erosion at places. The model was validated against measured water levels, two multi-year bathymetric datasets, and a bedload rating curve derived from direct field measurements. Using total or constant channel widths substantially distorted predicted erosion–deposition patterns, whereas the 2D-derived effective widths reproduced both the magnitude and spatial distribution of observed bed changes. Long-term simulations (2005–2035) show continuing riverbed incision of ~0.8 m in the most active 20 km. A widening scenario (1.5× effective width), modelling the removal of river training works, reduced incision by ~50%, while targeted sediment feeding (10,000 m³/yr) produced local mitigation with weaker downstream propagation. The study demonstrates that 2D-informed 1D morphodynamic modelling provides a transparent and computationally light decision-support tool suitable for evaluating sediment management strategies in large, engineered rivers.
Keywords: 1D model, Danube River, Effective width, River morphodynamics, sediment management, sediment transport
Received: 06 Dec 2025; Accepted: 30 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Baranya. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sándor Baranya
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