Recent views on the origin of river meandering and braiding

Using the expression of energy of an alluvial stream conveying a constant flow rate in conjunction with the entropy increment principle it has been demonstrated that the regime formation is by the minimization of flow velocity, and thus of the flow Froude number. In the case of meandering the minimizations mentioned are achieved by the reduction of channel slope, in the case of braiding, by the reduction of friction factor. The criteria for meandering and braiding are also revealed.