Rivers Flashcards
What are the four types of erosion?
hydraulic action, abrasion, solution, attrition
What are the four types of transportation?
suspension, solution, traction, saltation
What is a long profile?
A line showing the gradient of a river from source to mouth
What is a cross profile?
A section taken sideways across a river channel and/ or valley
What is a meander?
A bend in the river
(MEANDERS) What are riffles?
shallow, fast flowing sections with deposits of coarser gravel
(MEANDERS) What are pools?
Deeper, slower-moving sections with finer deposits
Where do waterfalls form?
Where there is a junction between a hard capping upstream and soft rock downstream
What is an oxbow lake?
A small, horseshoe-shaped lake
What is a waterfall?
A sudden, steep drop in a river
What is a gorge?
A deep, narrow passage that usually has a river running through it
What is an interlocking spur?
Hill that a river meanders around in a V-shaped valley. When viewed from downstream, these spurs appear to be locked together
What is a levee?
A raised river bed found alongside a river that is prone to flooding
What is a floodplain?
An area of low-lying land next to a river which is prone to flooding
What is an estuary?
The open mouth of the river where it meets the sea
What is a mudflat?
Sheltered coastal areas where mud is deposited by tides or rivers
What is a watershed?
the edge of a river basin
What is the source?
Where the river begins
What is the mouth?
Where a river meets the sea
What is a tributary?
A small stream joins a larger river
What is a confluence?
Where a tributary joins a larger river
What is a channel?
Where the river flows
What is a drainage basin?
An area of land drained but a river and it’s tributaries
What is a hydrograph?
A graph to show how a river responds to a period of rainfall
What is peak discharge?
Maximum amount of water held in the channel
What is peak rainfall?
Maximum amount of rainfall
What is lag time?
The time taken between peak rainfall and peak discharge
What is the rising limb?
Shows the increase in discharge on a hydrograph
What is the falling limb?
Shows the return of discharge to normal/ base flow in a hydrograph
What is base flow?
The normal discharge of the river
What is flooding?
Where land that isn’t usually underwater becomes inundated
What are physical factors of flooding?
Precipitation, geology, steep slopes
What are human factors of flooding?
Urbanisation, deforestation, agriculture
What is hard engineering?
Man-made structures to prevent or control nutarão processes from taking place
What is channel straightening?
When a meandering section of a river is engineered to crate a widened, straightened and depends course
What are embankments?
An artificially raised river bank (so more water can be held)
What is a flood relief channel?
An artificially made channel that’s designed as a backup channel for a river that frequently floods
What is soft engineering?
Working with the natural river processes to manage flood risk
