Download or read book River Meanders--theory of Minimum Variance written by Walter Basil Langbein and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The geometry of a meander is that of a random walk whose most frequent form minimizes the sum of the squares of the changes in direction in each unit length. Changes in direction closely approximate a sine function of channel distance. Depth, velocity, and slope are adjusted so as to decrease the variance of shear and the friction factor in a meander over that in an otherwise comparable straight reach of the same river.