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River bifurcations strongly control the distribution of water and sediment over a river system. A good understanding of this distribution process is crucial for river management. In this paper, an extensive data set from three large bifurcations in the Dutch Rhine is presented, containing data on bed‐load transport, suspended bed sediment transport, dune development and hydrodynamics. The data show complex variations in sediment transport during discharge waves. The objective of this paper is to examine and explain these measured variations in sediment transport. It is found that bend sorting upstream of the bifurcations leads to supply limitation, particularly in the downstream branch that originates in the outer bend of the main channel. Tidal water level variations lead to cyclical variations in the sediment distribution over the downstream branches. Lags in dune development cause complex hysteresis patterns in flow parameters and sediment transport. All bifurcations show evidence of sediment waves, which probably are intrinsic bifurcation phenomena. The complex transport processes at the three bifurcations cause distinct discontinuities in the downstream fining trend of the river. Differences among the studied river bifurcations are mainly due to differences in sediment mobility (Shields value). Because the variations in sediment transport are complex and poorly correlated with the flow discharge, prediction of the sediment distribution with existing relationships for one‐dimensional models is problematic.

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Sediments contained in the river bed do not necessarily contribute to morphological change. The finest part of the sediment mixture often fills the pores between the larger grains and can be removed without causing a drop in bed level. The discrimination between pore‐filling load and bed‐structure load, therefore, is of practical importance for morphological predictions. In this study, a new method is proposed to estimate the cut‐off grain size that forms the boundary between pore‐filling load and bed‐structure load. The method evaluates the pore structure of the river bed geometrically. Only detailed grain‐size distributions of the river bed are required as input to the method. A preliminary validation shows that the calculated porosity and cut‐off size values agree well with experimental data. Application of the new cut‐off size method to the river Rhine demonstrates that the estimated cut‐off size decreases in a downstream direction from about 2 to 0·05 mm, covariant with the downstream fining of bed sediments. Grain size fractions that are pore‐filling load in the upstream part of the river thus gradually become bed‐structure load in the downstream part. The estimated (mass) percentage of pore‐filling load in the river bed ranges from 0% in areas with a unimodal river bed, to about 22% in reaches with a bimodal sand‐gravel bed. The estimated bed porosity varies between 0·15 and 0·35, which is considerably less than the often‐used standard value of 0·40. The predicted cut‐off size between pore‐filling load and bed‐structure load (Dc,p) is fundamentally different from the cut‐off size between wash‐load and bed‐material load (Dc,w), irrespective of the method used to determine Dc,p or Dc,w. Dc,w values are in the order of 10−1 mm and mainly dependent on the flow characteristics, whereas Dc,p values are generally much larger (about 100 mm in gravel‐bed rivers) and dependent on the bed composition. Knowledge of Dc,w is important for the prediction of the total sediment transport in a river (including suspended fines that do not interact with the bed), whereas knowledge of Dc,p helps to improve morphological predictions, especially if spatial variations in Dc,p are taken into account. An alternative to using a spatially variable value of Dc,p in morphological models is to use a spatially variable bed porosity, which can also be predicted with the new method. In addition to the morphological benefits, the new method also has sedimentological applications. The possibility to determine quickly whether a sediment mixture is clast‐supported or matrix‐supported may help to better understand downstream fining trends, sediment entrainment thresholds and variations in hydraulic conductivity.