ABSTRACT
From time immemorial human habitats are centred around river courses and with that man has been blessed alternately by the life sustaining flow in the rivers when under control and then plagued by their destructive might when out of control. With the increase in population and to sustain higher standards of life it has become imperative for man to adopt river control measures so as not to destroy their cities, agricultural lands, transportation system, etc. This, however, is not at all an easy affair because of the unpredictable nature of the river behaviour which is primarily because it usually carries huge amount of silt load. The interaction between water discharge, the quantity and the character of the silt load, the composition of the bed material gives each river its own characteristic geometrical features such as meandering, straight and braided in plan from and various bed configurations such as ripples, dunes, bars, etc. in elevation. In the course of last several years, the subject of sediment transport and river mechanics has advanced considerably through sustained research efforts, backed by field study and quite a good number of textbooks exist dealing with various aspects of the subject matter [7, 23, 25, 26].
