Summary:

The Lower Odra is located between the Warta mouth and the Odra Roztoka. It has the character of lowland river, with low averaged energy gradients, smaller than 0.3‰. The flow of water and sediments takes place in the zone of subcritical movement. One can distinguish three sectors of Lower Odra, having different character: – the reach between the Warta mouth and Bielinek, behaving as a typical river, – the sector Bielinek – Gryfino, with influence of both river and sea, – the reach below Bielinek, typical for sea influence. The influence of wind and of high sea levels is marked mainly on the two last sectors. The transport of bed load, suspended load and wash load is observed in the whole Lower Odra. The bed sediments are composed mainly of sands and of fine gravels. Their grain size is decreasing in the downstream direction. The continuous bed load transport takes place in principle during the whole year. An important resistance component is this one concerning the bed load transport, related so to the grain roughness as to the bed forms roughness. The global coefficients of flow resistance for the Lower Odra were determined on the base of classic Manning formula using the measurements performed by Technical University Szczecin and data of hydrologic services. The resistance components concerning the grain roughness were calculated on the base of the knowledge of the granulometric composition of the bed material. The authors estimated also the critical depths for the beginning of bed load movement, for different grain fractions.