ABSTRACT
The magnitude of flood discharge capacity is influenced by both the upstream flow and sediment regime and the channel boundary condition. The braided reach in the lower Yellow River (LYR) was selected as the study area, and variations in these factors and their relationship during the period 1986-2015 were investigated, covering reach-scale bankfull discharge (the indicator of flood discharge capacity), the flow and sediment regime during flood seasons (represented by the fluvial erosion intensity), and the channel boundary condition (represented by the geomorphic coefficient). Results indicate that: (1) bankfull discharge shared a negative correlation with geomorphic coefficient and a positive correlation with fluvial erosion intensity; (2) a higher correlation coefficient (0.92) was obtained between bankfull discharge and the previous five-year average fluvial erosion intensity during flood seasons and the pre-flood geomorphic coefficient, which can well reproduce the variation in bankfull discharge in the study reach.
