anabranching

From ana- +‎ branching.

anabranching (not comparable)

1. (hydrology, of a water channel) Splitting around mid-channel islands that are roughly three times the width of the channel at full discharge.
   • 1969, Richard J. Chorley with Roger Graham Barry, Water, Earth, and Man‎^[1], page 425:

     Work on anabranching channels has been restricted mainly to the alluvial plains of the Murray and the Murrumbidgee, where the anabranches -- offshoots -- rejoin the original trunk or unite with a next-neighbouring trunk, sometimes after a distance of tens of miles.

   • 2008 January 18, Robert C. Walter, Dorothy J. Merritts, “Natural Streams and the Legacy of Water-Powered Mills”, in Science‎^[2], 319(5861), page 299:

     In particular, logjams blocked channels and led to the formation of side channels and floodplain sloughs, producing multiple anabranching channels and riverine wetlands that are in stark contrast to the large, single channels that exist in these streams today.

• anastomosing
• braided
• distributary
• meandering
• reticulate
• straight