Rivers

• Solution


  Transport of dissolved chemicals
• Transportation

  The river picks up sediment and carries it downstream in different ways
• Suspended sediment

  Lighter sediment is suspended in the water
• Near the mouth


  More lateral erosion, wide and smooth channels
• Profile

  A line representing the course of the river from source to mouth and height changes
• Saltation

  • Pebbles are bounced along both near the source of the river
• Tributary


  Small river or stream that joins a larger river
• Discharge


  • Increases as the river approaches the sea
• Watershed


  Boundary between two drainage basins
• Suspended sediment


  • Most common near the mouth
• Near the source


  More vertical erosion, narrow and shallow channels, contain large rocks
• Traction


  • Large, heavy pebbles are rolled along the river bed
• Solution


  • Variation along the river depending on the presence of soluble rocks
• Cross profile


  A line that represents what it would be like to walk from one side of the valley, across to the other side of the river bank
• Confluence


  Point where two rivers meet
• Discharge


  Amount of water flowing
• Drainage basin


  Area of land where all water flows into the same river
• Levee


  Raised riverbed found alongside a river in its lower course
• Floodplain


  Wide, flat marshy land covered in water when a river floods
• Estuaries


  Transitional zones between river and coastal environments which experience deposition
• Estuaries


  When there's less water, river deposits silt to form mudflats
• Meanders

  • Deposition causes Slip-Off slope on inside bend
• Estuaries


  Important habitat for wildlife
• Levee


  • Between each levee and riverbed are raised
• Floodplain


  • Very fertile as its made up of alluvium (deposited silt from a flood)
• Depositional landforms

  Form due to deposition
• Gorge


  Steep sided erosional landform found immediately downstream of a waterfall
• Meanders

  • Fastest bend in a river current on outside bends
• Waterfall


  Found in the upper course, water flows over the edge of hard rock into a plunge pool
• Interlocking spurs

  Alternating hills found near the source and within V-shaped valleys
• Levee


  During a flood, water flows over the banks and deposits silts
• Estuaries


  • Found at the mouth where the river meets the sea
• Meanders


  Wide bend in a river found in the middle course
• Floodplain


  Form due to both erosion and deposition
• Forms when

  Meander is cut off from main stream by the neck
• Oxbow lake


  1. shaped body of water
• Four causes of flooding are:

  • prolonged rainfall
  • Heavy rainfall
  • geology
  • vegetation
• Prolonged rainfall


  Rains for a long period of time
• Heavy rainfall


  Too much water at once , not soaked up by the soil
• Geology


  impermeable rocks don’t allow water through