Data and code for: River planforms originate from (im)balance between riverbank erosion and bar accretion

Why rivers confine flow to a single channel (single-thread planform) or divide flow into multiple sub-channels (multi-thread planform) forms a longstanding fundamental question in river science, which to date remains poorly understood. In the associated manuscript, we probe planform origins using a novel dataset of 11+ million riverbank migration vectors mapped from 36 years of global satellite imagery along 84 river systems. Results show single-thread rivers originate from a balance between bank erosion and opposing-bar deposition, which maintains an equilibrium width as channels migrate. In contrast, multi-thread rivers originate from imbalance: bank erosion outpaces opposing-bar deposition, causing sub-channels to repeatedly widen and split. This width instability challenges equilibrium paradigms in river science, endangers riverside communities, and lowers the potential costs of nature-based river restoration projects along multi-thread rivers. Here, we provide the data and codes th..., , , # Data and code for: River planforms originate from (im)balance between bank erosion and bar accretion

---

author: Austin Chadwick
contact: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]), [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

These materials are organized into two folders, Codes and Data. The Data folder contains spreadsheets, GIS geopackages, remote sensing images, and MATLAB data files for the associated manuscript \"River planforms originate from (im)balance between bank erosion and bar accretion\". The Codes folder provides MATLAB scripts and functions to generate the analysis and figures of the main manuscript. The last folder, temp, is empty; it acts as a temporary destination for output files that can be generated by the codes.

## Description of the data and file structure

All data are found in the folder \"Data\", which can be accessted by opening the zip file \"Data.zip\". The following is a breakdown of each file and subfolder in t...,