bankfull discharge: a standalone construct

Bankfull discharge is the flow that just fills a river's channel to the top of its banks, the level above which water spills onto the floodplain; it is widely taken as the channel-forming or effective flow that, over time, does the most geomorphic work in shaping channel dimensions. Williams's 1978 Bank-full discharge of rivers compared field methods for identifying the bankfull level and its recurrence across many rivers, cautioning that estimates vary with the criterion used. The referent is the discharge at the threshold of floodplain inundation.[1]

Unit

The stream discharge at which water reaches the top of the channel banks (volume per time, e.g. m³/s)

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified from channel geometry and field indicators of the bankfull stage, then converted to discharge; often associated with a roughly 1–2 year return period