Bridge abutments are usually located in the floodplain zone of rivers where velocity and shear stress are not uniformly distributed. The influence of channel geometry and lateral momentum transfer in compound flow field on the scouring phenomenon has not been fully investigated and understood yet. The impact of lateral momentum transfer on the local scour at abutments terminating in the floodplain of a compound channel is presented in this paper.

It is shown that, by accounting for lateral momentum transfer at small floodplain/main channel depth ratios (λ_a/H<0.3), estimates of maximum local scour depth are increased by up to 30%. Therefore, ignoring the influence of the lateral momentum transfer, in such circumstances, might result in unrealistic estimation of the scour depth. To draw a more general conclusion, more data are required to assess the influence of different parameters affecting the phenomenon in compound flow conditions.