Morphological studies are vital for water resources management, riverbank development, and flood mitigation. In this study, the sinuosity index and bank erosion were used to detect and quantify morphological changes using Landsat data (1990–2020) in the Barak river, India. The morphological changes were investigated in protected areas to analyze the effectiveness of existing protective structures on bank migration, which helps formulate better riverbank restoration plans. Using monthly discharge data from two stream gauge stations, the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) models were developed. The extensive sediment transportation in the region necessitates studying both the river flow and morphological changes. The developed SARIMA model was used to predict river discharges up to 2025, being trained with data from 2006 to 2015. The validation of the model (2016–2018) shows that the mean absolute percentage error for discharge at two gauging stations is 29.78 and 23.52%, respectively. The analysis shows that the sinuosity index and bank erosion were inversely proportional. The SARIMA model showed that the future monthly discharge in the case study could be substantially higher than the observed series and affect river erosion simultaneously. This approach applies to many other meandering river management and identifies future morphological changes.

River morphology describes a river's cross-sectional shape, sedimentation, and erosion. The meandering parameters, oxbow formation and decadal Land usage Land Cover fluctuations of Barak River were investigated using 21 meandering spans to measure river morphological changes. The decadal meandering parameters were calculated reach-wise and section-wise to characterize river morphological changes. It was observed from the paired t-test that the river width significantly changed during the study period (1990–2020). Strong inter-relationships between the meandering parameters are shown from the regression analysis. The morphological investigation found a reduction in the centerline distance due to variations in the radius of curvature caused by the internal arc's reduction. As a result, the average sinuosity has decreased over time. The current work used SVM and ML techniques for LULC classification, and a comparison of ML and SVM techniques was also done. The SVM technique performs better. The decadal LULC analysis suggests that between 1990 and 2020, the areas of water bodies, forests, and bare land types declined. Whereas, agricultural and settlement areas increased. River morphology is substantially impacted by agriculture and urbanization, particularly in areas where oxbows occur simultaneously, since this work may apply to other similar meandering river management along the alluvial flood plain.

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In the present study, the meandering behavior of the Barak River (Cachar), Assam was traced. Flow path length, meander neck length, sinuosity index, and river migration were determined segment-by-segment to demonstrate morphological changes. Decadal land-use land cover (LULC) maps were also prepared at the section scale using Landsat data (1990–2020) validated with the Kappa coefficient to characterize changes along alluvial floodplains. Urban growth and agricultural activities affect river morphology, especially where intensive agriculture was recorded, according to LULC studies. Due to urbanization, forestation constantly decreased, causing river variability. According to the results of the present study, river migration is very slow between Sec 1 and Sec 3. In terms of river stability, the parts are more stable, particularly Sec 1, which features less urbanization and agricultural activity than the other sections. The most vulnerable segments within the study area were considered to be Sec 2 and 4. There is a rather large amount of migration within sections, especially segments CC and GG. The river segments became more vulnerable as a new oxbow lake was formed and LULC changed over a decade. This stretch of Barak is characterized by a broad alluvial floodplain and is shifting since this study applies to various meandering types.