Global hydroclimatic controls on multithread river dynamics

Most large rivers in densely populated areas split flow into multiple channels, forming interconnected pathways called threads. Multithread rivers are sensitive to hydroclimatic changes, yet understanding their dynamics is challenging due to the lack of robust metrics to characterize their evolution. To investigate the drivers of river evolution, we analyze 38 years of Landsat imagery alongside discharge records for 97 multithread  reaches worldwide spanning diverse climates and both wandering and braided morphologies. We quantify the number of active threads and their allocated discharge through space and time using the entropic Braiding Index (eBI), coupled with metrics for bank migration rate, floodplain reworking, and channel-belt size. Data reveal that multithread river dynamics are strongly controlled by flow intermittency—expressed as the dimensionless ratio of long-term mean discharge to bankfull discharge. Rivers with lower flow intermittency (i.e., higher discharge relati..., , This repository contains the code and data used in the publication: 
**Global Hydroclimatic Controls on Multithread River Dynamics**

Authors: Feifei Zhao, Vamsi Ganti, Austin Chadwick, Evan Greenberg, Jonah McLeod, Yinxue Liu, Louise Slater, and Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

Corresponding author: Feifei Zhao: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

## Repository Structure

The archive consists of the following main components:

├── CODE.zip/
│ ├── eBIcalculator/
│ ├── misc/
│ ├── figures/
├── DATA.zip/
│ ├── [Data folders described below]
├── ebi_combined_statistics_clean.csv

CODE.zip/eBIcalculator/

Contains scripts and notebooks for computing the cross-sectional entropic Braiding Index (eBI) and Braiding Index (BI) from a time series of river masks.

* mesh_maker.ipynb
Generates evenly spaced cross sections perpendicular to a river centerline using rivgraph. These cross sections are used to calculate a reach-averaged entropic braiding index.
* preprocess_images.py
Pr...,