CoachA braided river flows in several shallow channels that divide and rejoin around bars, on a steep plain with abundant coarse load and variable discharge. A meandering river flows in a single sinuous channel on a gentler plain, carrying more fine sediment; it migrates by eroding the outer bank of each bend and depositing on the inner one. The deposit on the inner bank is a point bar. Avulsion is the abandonment of a channel for a new course across the floodplain, usually after a flood breaches a levee.
