THEORY AND APPLICATION OF HYDRAULIC GEOMETRY: REVIEW

A lot of works with the hydraulic geometry theory have been developed concerning its theory and application, since the proposal of its concept. The objective of the present study was to review the definition of this concept, ways in which the concept has been studied, and the main methods used for interpretation of their results. The obtained results mainly show that, with increased discharge, the velocity and the depth increase more rapidly than the width of the cross section and that the variation of the width of bedrock rivers is similar to that of alluvial-bed rivers. It was clearly observed that many works have studied in detail the hydraulic geometry relationships that differ in the change of the water flow power. Several types of climates and geological formations were evaluated to verify their influences on the exponents of the hydraulic geometry. Furthermore, the main causes for large variations in these exponents' values were investigated. The dominant discharge was closely correlated with drainage area, which permitted to develop the Regional Hydraulic Geometry Relationships. Other woks showed the behavior of sediment in relation to changes in the stream shape. The most explored topic in the hydraulic geometry is the mathematical modeling, which was mainly used to investigate the influence of a cross section shape and of the bankfull channel bed on the hydraulics variables behavior. The mathematical modeling was also used to verify the spatial variability of the hydraulic geometry due to the location of the cross sections. The applications of this theory were encountered, in practice, like the river revitalization projects and the water resources management projects.