How does sediment supply influence refugia availability in river widenings?

Habitats that mitigate the effects of a disturbance event (e.g. flood) are referred to as refugia. Their occurrence in heavily impacted river systems is often limited, and their restoration rarely pursued. This paper presents results combined laboratory numerical modeling study assess flood refugia availability mobile aquatic organisms context dynamic widening. We used calibrated 2D hydrodynamic model based on eight topographies obtained experiments by analyzing hydro-morphological conditions under varying sediment supply. Overall, equilibrium sustains more complex with low bed shear stress zones being maintained during elevated discharges. Furthermore, our suggest floodplain an important potential refuge becomes accessible for discharges return period approximately one year. Conversely, deficit homogeneous flow field steadily increasing hydraulic forces high flows impaired lateral connectivity except very large events 30- 100-year period. Dynamic widening implemented channel opposed thus likely provide