Problems of river bank and in-stream erosion are very common in most of the rivers in India and abroad. Various attempts have been made to overcome excessive erosion by constructing river training works. Porcupine systems are one of the novel techniques which have been adopted as a cost-effective method of river training. In this paper, the effect of porcupines on the velocity of flow and their ability to capture sediment has been investigated experimentally. Also, an attempt has been made to logically study the pattern of deposition caused by various configurations of Porcupine field layout and hence to propose a preliminary design methodology. Results show that there is a considerable reduction in the flow velocity resulting in the deposition of sediment with porcupines offering resistance to flow. © 2015 Indian Society for Hydraulics.