This dataset contains a comparison of topographic cross-sections spanning the river channel in a reach of the Kalamazoo River upstream of Plainwell, Michigan (MI), measured at two different time periods, 2010 and 2021. The 2021 cross-section data were extracted from a digital elevation model (DEM) comprising topographic and bathymetric data collected by several different methods. Bathymetric data in the river channel were collected in October, 2021 with a single beam sonar and Acoustic Current Doppler Profiler operated along two longitudinal transects and 48 cross-sectional transects, respectively. River bank topographic data were collected with a backpack-mounted terrestrial lidar unit concurrently with the bathymetric data. Floodplain elevations were obtained from aerial lidar data collected in 2015. All ground points from the respective datasets were projected to the same coordinate system and used to generate a DEM with 1m resolution covering the channel bed, banks, and floodplain, and valley walls through the reference reach. The 2010 cross-section data were collected by survey level and were located with a GPS coordinate. We used that coordinate to generate a cross-section in the same location, perpendicular to and spanning the river channel. This cross-section is coincident with cross-section 42 in the channel cross-sections spreadsheet associated with this data release, although the section's ends were extended by 10m to fully encompass the 2010 survey data. We extracted elevations at approximately 1m spacing along the cross-section from the topobathy DEM developed from our new data. To compare the historic data with the new transect, we shifted the local station and elevation coordinates of the historic data to align the left top of bank with the new data. Data are provided in both CSV format (tabular only) and Excel spreadsheet format (tabular and graphical).