AbstractLong‐term aggradation of the Waiho River, South Westland, New Zealand, has now raised the head of its alluvial fan to unprecedented elevations. In its natural state the river would, like all other major rivers in the area, be somewhat incised into its fanhead. The only relevant factor able to account for the aggradation is the presence of control banks (‘stopbanks’ in local parlance) that restrict the ability of the river to move over the whole of its natural fanhead.A 1 : 3333 scale physical hydraulic model (a ‘microscale’ model) was used to study this situation. An alluvial fan was generated in the model and allowed to develop to equilibrium with steady inputs of water and sediment within boundaries geometrically similar to those of the natural unrestricted Waiho River. The boundaries were then altered to represent the presence of the stopbanks, and the fan allowed to continue evolving under the same water and sediment inputs. The model fanhead aggraded in a spatial pattern similar to that recorded on the Waiho.Taking into consideration the limitations of microscale modelling, these results indicate that the aggradation in the Waiho is a result of the lateral restriction of the river by stopbanks. This poses fundamental questions about the variables that control the behaviour of alluvial fans. The results also suggest that microscale modelling can be used to make reliable quantitative predictions of the effects of engineering works on rivers, in spite of the low level of dynamic similarity with the prototype compared to that in larger‐scale models. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.