How Is Time Distributed in a River Meander Belt?

Abstract River meandering controls the age of floodplains through its characteristic paces growth and eventual cutoff channel bends, forming oxbows. Hence, floodplain‐age distributions should reflect a river's size migration rate. This hypothesis has been previously tested in numerical simulations, yet without systematic comparisons with natural systems. Here we analyze oxbow spacing timescales bend evolution abandonment numerically simulated meander belts. In both cases, saturated state is achieved whereby oxbows are spaced ∼1 radius apart. At saturation, distribution floodplain ages probability sediment‐storage time can be constrained from abandonment. Owing to similar relationships between width rivers, postulate that this approach apply unconfined rivers elsewhere—a independent geo‐ or dendrochronological data.