Definitions For Rivers Topic Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the watershed?

A

An area of ridge or land that separates waters flowing into different rivers, drainage basins or seas.

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2
Q

What is evapotranspiration?

A

The process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from the soul and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants.

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3
Q

Define precipitation.

A

Rain, snow, sleet or hail that falls to or condensed on the ground.

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4
Q

What is interception storage?

A

When precipitation from an event falls on vegetation which shelters the underlying ground and stops it from reaching the ground.

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5
Q

What is through fall?

A

The part of rain fall or other precipitation that falls to the forest floor through from the canopy.

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6
Q

What is stem flow?

A

The flow of intercepted water down the trunk or stem of a plant.

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7
Q

What is unimpeded fall?

A

When precipitation reaches the ground without being intercepted and with no obstructions.

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8
Q

Define infiltration.

A

The process by which water on the ground surface enters the soil.

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9
Q

What is overland flow?

A

The movement of water over the land, downslope towards the surface of a body of water.

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10
Q

Define percolation.

A

The process of a liquid slowly passing through a filter. When water flows through the ground through permeable rock.

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11
Q

What is through flow?

A

When water moved downhill slowly through the soil.

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12
Q

What is river run off?

A

Flow of rainwater away from where it has fallen.

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13
Q

What is the water balance?

A

Shows the balance of water going into and out of a drainage basin.

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14
Q

What is river discharge?

A

The volume of water passing a measuring point or gauging station in a river in a given time.

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15
Q

What is base flow?

A

The portion of stream flow that comes from ‘the sum of deep subsurface flow and delayed shallow subsurface flow’.

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16
Q

Define ‘runoff’.

A

All the water that enters a river and eventually flows out of the drama be basin. Can be quantified by measuring the discharge of a river.

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17
Q

What is a water budget graph?

A

A graph that shows the water budget of a particular location. Shows the relationship between temperature, precipitation and evaporation over a year.

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18
Q

What is a hydrograph?

A

A graph showing the rate of discharge versus time past a specific point in a river.

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19
Q

What is a storm hydrograph?

A

Shows variation in a rivers discharge over a short period of time- usually during a rainstorm.

20
Q

What is the rising limb?

A

The part of a hydrograph that shows the rising floodwater in a river.

21
Q

What is peak flow/ discharge?

A

The highest amount of discharge in the river shown on a hydrograph.

22
Q

What is the recession limb?

A

Shows the fall discharge back to base levels on a hydrograph.

23
Q

Define ‘lag time’.

A

The time difference between peak rainfall and peak discharge shown on a hydrograph.

24
Q

What is storm flow?

A

Overland flow + through flow (hydrograph).

25
Q

Define erosion.

A

The process of being broken down by wing, water or other natural processes. The gradual destruction or diminution or something.

26
Q

Define the word ‘deposition’.

A

The laying down of solid material, in the form of sediment, on the bed of a river or on the sea floor.

27
Q

Define ‘transportation’.

A

The movement of particles from the place they were eroded to the place they’re deposited.

28
Q

What is a drainage basin?

A

An area of land drained by a river and its tributaries.

29
Q

What is ‘hydraulic action’?

A

It is the movement of large, unconsolidated material from the river bed, particularly sand like particles, due to the frictional drag of the moving water on the sediment of the channel bed.

30
Q

What is abrasion?

A

The reduction in size of the rivers load particles due to the rubbing and hurting together of particles, causing more rounded and smaller particles to be created.

31
Q

What is corrosion erosion?

A

When the minerals in rocks are dissolved by weak acids in the rivers water and therefore carried away in solution. Most active in carbonate rocks.

32
Q

Describe what abrasion erosion is.

A

It is the scraping, rubbing and scouring of the rivers load along the river bed and banks, leading to the banks and the bed f the river channel being wore away.

33
Q

What is cavitation erosion?

A

When air bubbles in turbulent stretches of water implode, causing shock waves that break pieces of rock off the banks and bed.

34
Q

Describe what head ward erosion is.

A

It’s the process of making the river channel longer by erosion. It happens at a rivers source as through flow and surface run off causes erosion at the point where water enters the river channel.

35
Q

Describe what vertical erosion is.

A

Erosion that erodes the rivers bed to make the river deeper. Predominantly happens in the rivers upper course where there is lots of energy.

36
Q

What is lateral erosion?

A

The process of wide being the river by eroding its banks. Happens most in the middle and lower courses of a river where there is lower energy.

37
Q

Describe what solution transportation is.

A

When dissolvable substances on rocks are dissolved and carried along in the water. E.g; limestone’s dissolved in water that’s slightly acidic.

38
Q

Describe what saltation transportation is.

A

A process associate with relatively high energy conditions where small stones (e.g; pebbles/ gravel) bounce or leapfrog along the channel bed

39
Q

What is suspension transportation?

A

When fine material (e.g; silt/ clay) is whipped up by waters turbulence and carries along in the moving water in the rivers load.

40
Q

Describe what traction transportation is.

A

When very large particles, for example boulders, are pushed along the river bed by the force of the water in the river- associated with very high energy.

41
Q

What is a rivers competence?

A

The maximum size of a particle a river can carry in its load at a given point.

42
Q

What is river capacity?

A

The total load a river can transport at a certain point- measured in weight/ mass/ volume.

43
Q

What is the fall velocity curve?

A

The line on the Hjülstrom curve that shows the velocity at which the particles are deposited and illustrates the rivers competence at different given velocities.

44
Q

Explain what the critical erosion velocity of a river is.

A

The line on the Hjülstrom curve that shows the minimum velocity needed for a river to pick up and transport material of different sizes within its load.

45
Q

What is a logarithmic scale?

A

The scale the Hjülstrom curve goes up in. It goes up in tens- e.g; 0.1,1,10,100 etc.