MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE KONDA RIVER BED

Abstract

The article presents the results of long-term studies of the Konda River basin (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug). Despite the fact that the Konda is one of the largest rivers in the region, hydrological studies of the river are fragmentary and there are no studies on channel processes. The Konda plays an important role in the social and economic life of the southwestern part of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra as it is one of the main transport routes for interdistrict communication. This article is the first to give a generalized description of manifestations of channel processes – types of channels, bends, conditions and regularities of their development – for the navigable section of the Upper, Middle and Lower Konda (from Lake Tursuntsky Tuman to the mouth). The author discusses the issues related to the development of channel deformations, describes a typical set of morphometric characteristics for different types of channels, classifies them, shows the possibilities of practical use of the research results for forecasting channel deformations. It has been revealed that in the Lower Konda, with a great variety of channel types, the most active deformations are characteristic of channel bends and bends of floodplain branching arms and a bifurcated channel; in the Upper and Middle Konda, having a mainly meandering channel, bank erosion is confined to free channel bends.