Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016

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Engineering Science and Technology,

an International Journal
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jestch

Full Length Article

Quantification and visualization of flood-induced morphological changes

in meander structures by UAV-based monitoring
Semih Sami Akay a,⇑, Orkan Özcan b, Füsun Balık Sß anlı a
a
Geomatic Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul 34220, Turkey
b
Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul 34469, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: River basins are one of the most dynamic terrains on Earth, therefore, river morphology should be mon-
Received 9 December 2020 itored continuously and its effects on the environment (i.e. natural hazards) should be mapped whenever
Revised 3 May 2021 possible. This study was carried out to quantify and visualize –flood- induced morphological changes in
Accepted 20 May 2021
meander structures by UAV-based monitoring. Two-year (2018 and 2019) field surveys were conducted
Available online 04 June 2021
in the Büyük Menderes River (BMR) Basin, Turkey. Multi-temporal orthomosaics and digital surface mod-
els (DSMs) were constructed using the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique to evaluate the change of
Keywords:
river morphology. Diachronic spatial and volumetric changes in the meander structures were assessed by
Natural hazard
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Difference (DoD) tools.
Multi-temporal surveys This study shows the importance of mapping and monitoring river basins that have an impact on human
River morphology life in many ways with evaluating and analyzing the results of extreme events such as floods promptly.
Ó 2021 Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Rivers, which are one of the most important natural water
sources on the earth surface and in the ecosystem, provide trans-
portation, energy production, water supply to domestic, agricul-
tural and industrial activities while including animal and plant
diversity as well. Therefore, some artificial and natural changes
in rivers affect the ecosystem in river basins negatively such as
uncontrolled use of water, quarrying and pollution by wastes. In
addition to the decline in water quality, the morphology of river
beds changes with deposition and erosion on the river banks
[1,2]. Besides, the morphology of the river channel changes with
high or low flow rates. Significant geomorphological changes
may occur in river beds as a result of changes in river water level
due to seasonal precipitation and temperatures, which causes
deposition and floods [3,4]. Therewithal, climate changes trigger
extreme rainfall and flood events that negatively affect the devel-
opment of regions and cause deaths with environmental and eco-
nomic damages. Climate change, which causes regional
temperature differences, changes in wind type, precipitation
regime and air quality, creates temperature changes and triggering
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: semih.sami.akay@std.yildiz.edu.tr (S.S. Akay), ozcanork@itu.
edu.tr (O. Özcan), fbalik@yildiz.edu.tr (F. Balık Sßanlı).
Peer review under responsibility of Karabuk University.
extreme events [5,6]. In cases where floods are unavoidable, the
damages can be minimized by taking necessary precautions [7].
In particular, investigation of changes in bank line and sediment
quantities can provide information about possible future floods
[8,9]. Understanding the changes in meander structures by means
of either deposition or erosion through time is essential in order to
prevent the morphologic and river basin management problems
and to develop strategies for the protection of river basins [10].
Morphological changes in river basins can be quantified by topo-
graphical data obtained via various methods. Especially, the
changes that occurred in riverbeds (i.e. channel changes etc.) can
be monitored with satellite and aerial imagery [11]. However,
changes over a short period of time, such as small-scale topo-
graphic changes, may be topographically overlooked. UAVs are less
affected by meteorological conditions and providing more flexible,
spatial resolution and operational cost opportunities, when it is
compared to satellite images [12,13]. Therefore, thanks to
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology that can provide very
high-resolution data, morphological changes can now be examined
in more detail [10]. Determining the changes that on surfaces by
natural events can be performed by producing fast and high accu-
racy data with UAVs [15-18]. The morphological changes in the
river beds and the failures by floods in the bankline can be deter-
mined with multitemporal UAVs flights. Therefore, the amount of
the erosion, deposition and failures can be determined [19,20].
The deposition and erosion rate of channel bed can be quantified

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jestch.2021.05.020
2215-0986/Ó 2021 Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı
by multi-temporal unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based measure-
ments to estimate the sediment transport along the river [4,17,18].
Nowadays, UAVs are widely used in various applications as an
alternative to satellite systems for monitoring and modeling the
earth surface. Although UAVs are affected by battery life limita-
tions and weather conditions such as wind, they can provide better
topographic data production of study areas in cloudy weather. Fur-
thermore, UAVs offer significant advantages in terms of time, cost,
data acquisition, and image resolution as compared to terrestrial
photogrammetry and satellite remote sensing systems. UAVs are
used to produce very high-resolution topography of riverbeds by
Structure from Motion (SfM) method [14,21]. SfM, which brings
automation for data analysis, plays an important role in the 3D
reconstruction of complex surfaces over remote areas, and offers
rapid solutions for change detection analysis [22]. It is seen that
the UAV-based SfM method offers significant advantages and
speed in natural hazards, disaster risk management, emergency
and security operations, when time and scale parameters are taken
into account. UAV-based SFM method is used in determining the
effects in many areas such as floodplains, earthquakes, landslides,
geomorphology and volcanic areas and planning land arrange-
ments with high resolution and low cost data provided by mobile
operations [23-25]. Accordingly, digital surface models (DSMs) and
orthomosaics can be produced with high accuracy and spatial res-
olution by UAVs, which are already used for morphodynamic mod-
eling of rivers, for tracking river ecosystem or evolution and for
estimation of flood impacts on residential and non-residential
regions [17,18,26]. The surfaces where natural or artificial events
occur can be determined and morphological changes can be exam-
ined by mapping the surface with multi-temporal data. However,
UAVs also offer a quick solution to determine the damage or to take
timely precautions [4,13,26-28]. Besides, the amount of trans-
ported material due to either landslides or flood induced land use/-
cover changes in agricultural areas can be determined by
calculating the height differences between DSMs [29,30]. In order
to monitor the temporal geomorphological changes, UAV-derived
DSM data can be as an alternative to the traditional measurement
methods [18,31,32]. Today, UAVs are preferred to determine the
changes in river morphology, the amount of sediment erosion or
deposition and the effects of flood events [4,28].
In this study, it was aimed to monitor and quantify the sedi-
ment changes over two years in three different meander struc-
tures, which were selected according to their features such as
width, sinuosity, and level. Further, the effects of the flood, which
occurred during the field study, were examined to monitor the
changes along the banklines and the amount of eroded/deposited
sediment was quantified by the Digital Shoreline Analysis System
(DSAS) and DEM of difference (DoD) tools.
2. Study area and field surveys
The Büyük Menderes River (BMR) Basin, which is located in
south-western Anatolia, is Turkey’s seventh most populous basin
that contributes to agriculture, industry, and natural ecosystems
with biological diversity and natural resources [33]. The BMR orig-
inates from the plateaus near Dinar and Çivril in Central Western
Anatolia and it flows into the sea on the estuary of the Aegean
Sea. There are ten provinces within the boundaries of the BMR
Basin, and that is located close to big city centers such as Aydın
and Denizli. In the study, three meander structures were examined
using long-term satellite images before the field studies. The study
locations were selected in accordance with their sinuosity. Further,
the movement of the sediments was monitored to investigate the
morphological changes in the selected meander structures along
with the BMR. Fig. 1 shows the study locations in the BMR Basin.
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Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016
Periodic field studies with UAV photogrammetric flights were car-
ried out in January, June, and September in both 2018 and 2019 to
determine temporal changes in the meander structures.
In the study, periodic field studies were carried out with two
different types of multirotor UAVs having an integrated camera
and positioning systems. The payload weights and the camera res-
olution of both UAVs (DJI Mavic Platinum Pro (MPP) and DJI Phan-
tom 3 Pro (P3P)), were 734 gr/1280 gr and 12.7 MP, respectively.
Flights were carried out with an overlap ratio of 85% in both frontal
and lateral directions on all meander structures at 100-meter alti-
tude. The same flight paths and parameters were used for every
periodic flight. In winter, when the UAV flights were affected by
the weather conditions, field studies were planned at the time of
no precipitation. All flight parameters and the acquired data are
shown in Table 1.
Since there were neither permanent artificial nor natural
objects existed that can be used as ground control points (GCPs),
portable GCPs were distributed in meander structures and the
coordinates of GCPs were measured with Real-Time Kinematic
(RTK) GPS method (Fig. 2). For each meander structure, 4 to 6 GCPs
were arranged in a way that each GCP centered the tributary area
of the investigated field surface before each flight. In studies car-
ried out with UAVs, it is seen that as the number of GCPs homoge-
neously distributed over the field increases, the change in spatial
accuracy is low and this change is in millimeter degree [35,36].
During coordinate measurements of the GCPs, the vertical and hor-
izontal errors of coordinate were measured between 2.0 and
14.0 cm and 1.6–12.0 cm, respectively.
3. Methods
3.1. Data generation and processing
SfM method, which is a new, fast and low-cost photogrammet-
ric method, provides high accuracy three-dimensional data by
matching the objects in the photo series with different overlap
rates, taken at different locations [34]. Bundle adjustment, which
provides camera positions and extraction of 3D positions of
objects, is used in the process of determining parameters with high
accuracy and improve SFM method. In addition, bundle adjustment
ensures that the cost function is minimized [37,38]. Point clouds,
DSMs, and orthomosaics which can provide very precious data in
many different large and small-scale studies, were produced by
SfM method in order to examine two-dimensional (2D) and
three-dimensional (3D) morphological changes of the surfaces
periodically [2,17]. In the study, high-resolution data production
processes were performed with SfM method by gathering the
entire data. Aerial photographs were acquired by UAVs during
the field studies and real-world coordinates of the GCPs were inte-
grated into the system for each meander structures (Fig. 2). Flight
plans were made with Pix4D capture software by drawing poly-
gons to cover the study areas. GCP coordinate measurements were
carried out with the Leica GPS900 system. In order to increase the
measurement accuracy, GCPs were assigned on aerial photographs,
and high-resolution spatiotemporal data were produced by using
Pix4D software subsequently. Hereby, the DSM of the meander
structures were produced by a six-month period of orthomosaics.
All orthomosaics and DEMs were generated with a ground sam-
pling distance (GSD) of 5 cm. For the entire data, the average hor-
izontal and vertical of RMSE were calculated as 10.3 cm and 6.6 cm,
respectively. Changes in the banklines and in the sediment
amounts were mapped and quantified with the progress of the
data production phase. 4
In January 2019, the heavy flood due to the extreme rainfall
affected the meander structures. The changes in the selected
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016

Fig. 1. Demonstration of study locations and the BMR Basin (The white box indicates the basin location on Turkey).”).

Table 1
Flight specifications of each UAV survey.

# of Flights Study Location Date # of Images UAV RMSE (pix)

Flight 1 Meander 1 28.01.2018 142 P3P 0.3
Meander 2 29.01.2018 146 P3P 0.3
Meander 3 29.01.2018 261 P3P 0.3
Flight 2 Meander 1 03.06.2018 143 P3P 0.3
Meander 2 04.06.2018 146 P3P 0.3
Meander 3 04.06.2018 259 P3P 0.3
Flight 3 Meander 1 26.09.2018 143 P3P 0.3
Meander 2 26.09.2018 143 P3P 0.2
Meander 3 26.09.2018 259 P3P 0.2
Flight 4 Meander 1 28.01.2019 314 P3P 0.3
Meander 2 27.01.2019 321 P3P 0.3
Meander 3 27.01.2019 405 P3P 0.3
Flight 5 Meander 1 10.06.2019 148 MPP 0.5
Meander 2 10.06.2019 415 MPP 0.3
Meander 3 10.06.2019 309 MPP 0.3
Flight 6 Meander 1 21.09.2019 142 P3P 0.3
Meander 2 21.09.2019 484 MPP 0.3
Meander 3 21.09.2019 315 MPP 0.3

meanders were investigated by comparing the orthomosaics that
were obtained before and after the flood event in one-year time
scale between January 2018 (Fig. 3a-3c for the Meander 1–3,
respectively) and January 2019 (Fig. 3d-3f for the Meander 1–3,
respectively). Herein, it was observed that when the river water
level increased, first the sediment areas were submerged, and then
transported as expected.
3
3.2. Inter-comparison of morphological changes
The temporal changes that occur in land use/cover of the sur-
face can be examined with the DSAS method. DSAS method pro-
vides the calculation of the rates of intersection, change and
distance with the sections created by using time and location infor-
mation in linear areas such as river shoreline and glacier coasts
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı
Fig. 2. Representation of (a) GCP distribution and aerial images locations on
Meander 1 point cloud in Pix4D software, (b) + shaped landmarks used in UAV
surveys and (c) an example of a portable GCP on land.
Fig. 3. UAV surveys of the meander structures belong to (a-c) January 2018 and (d-f) January 2019 (during the flood event).
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Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016
[39]. In this study, the DSAS method was used to calculates the
changes in banklines by forming transecting lines between the
baseline and obtained banklines at different time intervals. First
of all, banklines of meander structures were determined on the
orthomosaics by digitization. After the process of banklines extrac-
tion, the DSAS method was applied to examine the changes in the
banklines from January 2018 to January 2019. Statistical analysis of
the DSAS method was done by determining the changes between
the first date and the last date (Net Shoreline Movement –
NSM) and the changes between the near and distant banklines
(Shoreline Change Envelope - SCE) [39]. The bankline that was
determined in January 2019 was used for constructing a reference
line as a baseline at a distance of 2 m to the land to minimize the
effect of vegetation on the height change. The changes in the
banklines were calculated by drawing sections between the bankli-
nes and the baselines at 1 m intervals. Fig. 4 shows the monthly
extracted banklines, reference line (baseline), and transects to
determine the dimensions of the changes on banklines between
2018 and 2019. As the changes along the banklines can be exam-
ined by visual interpretation from UAV-derived orthomosaics of
June and September for 2018 and 2019, it was quantified by
obtaining the average changes (NSM) between the first date and
the last date in the banklines that were between 1.8 m and
3.5 m respectively. Additionally, the maximum and the minimum
changes in the banklines (SCE) were observed to be in Meander 2
and Meander 1 with a change of 74.5 m and 0.9 m, respectively.
Furthermore, river centerlines were produced by using bankli-
nes and sinuosity index values (SI) shown in Fig. 5. Although they
were very close to each other in all other extractions, the centerli-
nes extracted for January 2019 moved towards to the land due to
flooding.
The average SI values of Meander 1, 2 and 3 were calculated as
2.15, 1.15, and 2.25, respectively. Therefore, Meander 2 was
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı
Fig. 4. Visualization of change detection along the banklines by the DSAS for each meander structures. Demonstration of the corresponding transects produced by DSAS and
banklines for (a) Meander 1, (b) Meander 2 and (c) Meander 3. The banklines extracted from orthomosaics for each month are shown in different colors.
Fig. 5. Representation of river centerlines produced with the banklines on the orthomosaics for (a) Meander 1 (b) Meander 2 (c) Meander 3.
defined as sinuous, while the remaining meanders were defined as
meandering according to Rosgen (1994) [40]. It is also observed
that there is direct relation between the sinuosity index, deforma-
tions and failures in riverbeds. It can be inferred that riverbeds
with low sinuosity index were less prone to riverbank failures with
low sediment transport rate [41,42].
The volumetric changes in sediment amounts were extracted
from UAV-derived DSMs. Geomorphic Change Detection (GCD),
which use DoD method, enables the determination of the volumet-
ric change by calculating the elevation differences in the DEM pro-
duced by repeated measurements in river beds [43,44]. The DoD
method, which calculates volumetric changes between topo-
graphic surfaces with a pixel-based basis in the difference of the
DSMs, is widely used to monitor and interpret the geomorpholog-
ical and topographical changes with multi-temporal DSMs [44-46].
Likewise, changes on the surface as a result of morphological pro-
cesses can be determined by calculating the difference of multi-
temporal DSMs with the DoD method [32]. In this study, the
deposited/eroded regions and their changes over time were deter-
mined by the DoD method in the period between 2018 and 2019.
Following the DoD process, a change map was created showing
the change in pixel-by-pixel height. Totally six DSMs for each
meander structures were used to calculate the volumes and to
quantify the topographic changes within the region of interests
(ROIs) by computing a DoD change map. Fig. 6 shows an example
of DSMs for Meander 1 and the DoD change map produced with
DSMs for each meander structure between January 2018 and June
5
Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016
2018 (Fig. 6). In this study, the changes were carried out by calcu-
lating areal and volumetric differences in order to examine them in
two and three dimensions. GCD can give the accuracy of volumet-
ric changes due to DEM resolution. Since there were no planimetric
measurements in the past, the interpretation of the areal accuracy
is depends on the acquired data accuracy.
4. Quantitative results
Morphological changes in the meander structures were quanti-
fied by calculating sediment budgets in the regions where sedi-
ment changes were higher rather than the entire meander
structure which were determined by visual interpretation. It is
clear that the area considered for volumetric changes is the chan-
ged area that is not submerged during the surveys, as it becomes
evident in C D and E from Fig. 6 and all the submerged area is
not usable for calculations using only a photogrammetrical survey
because of the limitations of this method in water covered areas, as
well. Thus, a 5 m buffer-distance from the banklines of January
2018 towards the land was created in order to provide reference
lines. The areas between the banklines and the reference lines were
selected as the change regions according to which the change anal-
yses of sediment budgets were performed. Hereby, the amount of
deposited/eroded sediment was calculated between January, June,
and September for 2018 and 2019. Fig. 7 shows the areal and
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016

Fig. 6. Example of the (a-c) DoD analysis for Meander 1, (d) Volumetric change analysis in the ROI of Meander 2 from January to June 2018, (e) Volumetric change analysis in
the ROI of Meander 3 from January to June 2018 and (f) Demonstration of the extracted ROIs with banklines for all surveys for Meander 1. The black dashed boxes on the
orthomosaics shows the areas where the analysis was carried out in the meander structures.

Fig. 7. Cumulative changes of areal and volumetric values between diachronic surveys in the associated meanders.

6
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı
volumetric values of the temporal sediment changes in the ROIs
between 2018 and 2019.
The areal changes showed that the sediment amounts increased
in these regions from January to September in 2018. Besides, the
sediment deposition reached the highest value among others in
September. In addition, Meander 3 has the highest deposition
value in both 2018 and 2019. Although the amount of sediment
deposition in 2019 approached the value in 2018, these values
did not exceed 2018.
The lowest spatial change was found in Meander 1 with 71.4 m2
between January and June for 2018 following by Meander 3 with
92.1 m2 between January and September for 2019. On the contrary,
the highest change was in Meander 3 for both years with
5557.9 m2 and 11716.8 m2 between January and September,
respectively.
Inter-comparison results showed that the flood had a high
impact on sediment areas and the most spatial change occurred
before and after the flood. On the other hand, it was observed that
the spatial changes in June and September were similar for both
years. Analysis refers to the increase and decrease in sediment val-
ues. The sediment areas were submerged due to the increase in the
water level in January 2019. Therefore, the rising value referred to
erosion values, which were calculated by the analyses carried out
with January 2019. In 2018, volumetric changes showed that the
amount of sediment changes between June and September was
higher than that of between January and June. In the two long-
term periods between January and September, the highest value
of the volumetric change was calculated as 10825.7 m3 in Meander
3 for 2018 and 39379.9 m3 in Meander 3 for 2019. The lowest vol-
umetric change was observed at Meander 1 for both years and
these values were calculated as 435.9 m3 between January and
June and 723.1 m3 between June and September, respectively.
The calculated accuracy in volumetric changes is revealed by the
Fig. 8. Multi-temporal monitoring of flood-induced riverbank failures outside the ROIs (a-c) in Meander 1 and (d-f) in Meander 2.
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Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016
GCD tool and the sediment change accuracy was determined not
to exceed ± 15 m3 in the study locations. As a result of the study
performed within two-year of monitoring, morphological changes
on the meander structures were calculated with high accuracy by
UAV-based data.
4.1. Flood-induced morphological changes
Alongside the temporal changes occurring in the stated ROIs,
some riverbank failures were observed (Fig. 8). The areal and vol-
umetric representation of the changes is expressed in Fig. 6 and
Fig. 8 with the results of the DoD and DSAS methods. Especially,
the failure with a dimension of 11.2 m in length and 5.4 m in width
caused floodwaters to inundate the agricultural areas in Meander
2.
Flood-induced failures led to erosion with a dimension of
93.8 m2 and 161.6 m2 in Meander 1 and Meander 2, respectively.
The change analysis before and after the flood showed that 134%
of the sediment area in September disappeared as a result of the
flood in the erosion surface of Meander 1. After the flood, the
eroded area was reconstructed and the deposited area expanded
by 387% in June 2019. The spatial values of the 2018 and 2019 in
diachronic study of the spatial variation between January and June
due to flooding were found to be 751% and 1196% for Meander 1
and Meander 2, respectively. Table 2 shows the corresponding
changes between 2018 and 2019.
In volumetric measurements, raising refers to the increase in
surface height, lowering refers to the decrease. The total of sedi-
ment changes refers to the entire change determined as raising
and lowering. Therefore, the resulting erosion and failures are
expressed by lowering, and deposition and surface increase are
expressed by raising. In addition to the total change, the display
of the lowering and raising amounts is important in terms of
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016

Table 2
Quantitative changes of riverbank failures in Meander 1 and Meander 2.

2018 Change Type Periods

January - June June - September January - September
Meander 1 (Erosion Surface) Area (m2) 42.7 46.7 89.3
Meander 2 (Erosion Surface) 18.5 34.8 53.3
Meander 1 (Erosion Surface) Volume (m3) Lowering Raising Total Lowering Raising Total Lowering Raising Total
14.9 15.3 30.2 35.5 6.5 42.0 89.9 30.9 120.8
Meander 2 (Erosion Surface) 0.3 45.2 45.5 0.1 26.9 27.0 6.8 59.7 66.5
2019 January - June June - September January - September
Meander 1 (Erosion Surface) Area (m2) 363.1 82.4 445.5
Meander 2 (Erosion Surface) 240.4 7.9 248.3
Meander 1 (Erosion Surface) Volume (m3) Lowering Raising Total Lowering Raising Total Lowering Raising Total
413.0 142.7 555.7 43.1 6.3 49.4 382.9 278.3 661.2
Meander 2 (Erosion Surface) 542.6 82.3 624.9 4.1 1.8 5.9 494.1 75.8 569.9

understanding the sediment mobility. The lowering caused by fail-
ures will enable the determination of the filling volume needed in
the reconstruction process. Herein, the reason for the highest
change between January and September 2019 is due to the
decrease in the sediment accumulation where the eroded areas
were submerged. Volumetric values and visual interpretation from
January to June in 2019 showed that the area of erosion returned to
its structure in 2018.
5. Results and discussion
It could be stated that meander structures showed similar
changes while there was no flooding in the basin. Even though
the meanders have been located in the same basin, the effects of
these meanders have been observed to differ in flood conditions.
Unless there is an artificial change in the basins, there will be sed-
iment deposition areas in the meander structures with the
decrease of the water level and the flow of the stream. Further-
more, the flood caused erosion and failures in meander structures
and the agricultural areas were negatively affected. After the flood,
it was observed that the flood-induced failures were restored by
natural sediment transport and artificial filling operations.

In this study, the morphological changes along the meander

structures were monitored and mapped within a 2-year period
considering the flood induced effects by means of UAV based
methods which can be regarded as a rapid and efficient mapping
solution. Field surveys showed that the expansion in the sediment
regions (i.e. deposition), was observed from January to September
with the deposition process in the existing sediment regions. Espe-
cially in January 2019, new sediment regions were formed with a
decrease in water level and high volumetric changes occurred.
Despite the sudden changes in the bankline due to the flood in Jan-
uary 2019, the bankline in June and September 2019 was returned
an equivalent position to 2018. The comparison of the periods of
June and September for both years showed that the change is less
in the Meander 2 region. It can be interpreted that the deposition
process is more effective in the regions, where riverbank failures
were observed.
The areas in yellow color indicate little or no change in the
bankline, whereas the red and blue colors show the ascending
and descending volume in Fig. 6. The surface elevation changes
of Meander 1, Meander 2 and Meander 3 were measured as
2.1 m, 1.2 m and 1.4 m for 2018, respectively, while they were
2.3 m, 3.7 m, 3.4 m for 2019. Comparing the same periods in
2018 and 2019, it was determined that the highest change was
in Meander 2 with 6.2 m due to the flood event. In addition, centre-
lines of the meander structures have changed due to the increase
in the water level following the inundation, and the SI values have
decreased. Thus, even a decrease in the value of SI would indicate
flooding in the basin. After the flooding in 2019, SI values reached
the SI value in 2018 again. While failures occurred in Meander 1
and Meander 2 during flooding, there were no failures occurred
in Meander 3, although it has the highest SI value. As a result,
the relationship between SI and amounts of sediment has been
revealed. The correlation of areal and volumetric sediment changes
was performed for the entire meander structures used in the study.
Nominately; the correlations of areal and volumetric values with SI
were found as rArea = 0.52 and rVolume = 0.47, respectively.
8
6. Conclusion
Herein, the UAVs were proved to be very suitable for monitor-
ing river morphology by providing multi-temporal, very high spa-
tial resolution orthomosaics and DEMs to calculate morphological
changes. UAVs can provide high-resolution topographic data of
river basins, where it is difficult or impossible to access because
of natural surface structures and natural disasters. Therefore, UAVs
will be a part of the works that need to be monitored and con-
trolled especially for mapping natural hazards. Since floods do
not occur frequently and are not continuous natural events, it is
hard to make damage estimation. In the study, diachronic data sets
were obtained from UAV flights that were performed periodically
with minimum exposure to weather conditions. Comparison of
the same periods in 2018 and 2019 showed that the areal and vol-
umetric change values have similar periodic changes.
In this study, periodic changes were investigated in the mean-
dering structures of the BMR basin. The changes that occurred in
both a non-flood year and a flood year were examined. It can be
stated that the flood effect was different in each meander structure
and similar surface changes can be seen in the non-flood processes.
This study shows that UAVs can be regarded as a reliable and faster
measurement method to investigate morphological changes in
river basins, and the damages and failures can be minimized by
monitoring and taking precautions.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Semih Sami Akay, O. Özcan and Füsun Balık Sßanlı Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 27 (2022) 101016

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