Working with Nature

Both these pictures were taken approximately 2.5 kilometers from the river’s source at a brief time of high water, and demonstrate, how the banks and a river’s course can be controlled and modeled by semi permanent or temporary means.

　

In the first picture the old tree stump serves to pinch the river on the left-hand bank to cause a speeding in current flow and a deepening along the right-hand flanks of the river for a considerably long way, as clearly indicated by the flow’s lines and string of bubbles as the water breaks.

When this part of the river is running back to its normal level, the gentle slope of silt along the left hand bank is revealed and the river course remains to the right hand side within the deeper channel.


The second photograph, was taken further up stream where the banks are more vertical and as you can see, there is an obstacle (rock) directly in front of the tree to cause pinching below the high (current) surface in water levels. While this and the tree are insufficient to alter the centerline of the river’s flow, they do however, cause the currents running (left to right in the shot) alongside the bank, to physically eddy and flow back upstream; undercutting and hollowing out the riverbank for a good few metres.

Again, when this part of the river is back to its normal levels, the vertical banks will remain, with the linear cave (now approximately 25cm x 3metres) suspended midway up the bank.

While these examples detail view able changes (to be seen at the surface) that have been made by Nature. It is this aspect, of achieving a variety of flow results, through the remodeling and the shaping of river bank and bed profiles, that Coldstream’r has been designed to assist with, in providing a new provision to the management of rivers and ultimately flood prevention.

Utilising new innovative techniques, in creating and sculpting semi permanent underwater features, refining, and or removing temporary modeling features (in targeted areas) throughout the seasons; Designed to, speed, slow, and or direct, changes in current and course, maximising the forces of Nature, toward and upon building a sustainable Flood Prevention Scheme.