fw.1.4 River landforms
Content
- Geographic inquiry and concept(s)
- How physical processes influence drainage basin systems and landforms
- Geographic knowledge and understanding
- The formation of typical river landforms, including waterfalls, floodplains, meanders, levees and deltas
- Case study or detailed examples
- Neither required by the syllabus
- Aims of this lesson
- To be have knowledge and understanding of how the river processes of erosion, transportation and deposition interact to produce typical river landforms.
Base knowledge and understanding
News article
Key terms
- Delta
- A landform created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth and enters slower-moving or stagnant water.
- Fertile
- Producing or bearing many crops in great quantities.
- Floodplain
- A floodplain is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge. The soils usually consist of clays, silts, sands, and gravels deposited during floods.
- Levee
- Can be naturally occurring ridge structures that form next to the bank of a river, or be an artificially constructed fill or wall that regulates water levels. A structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain.
- Meander
- One of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse.
- Oxbow lake
- A horse-shoe shaped lake separated from an adjacent river. The water is stagnant and, in time, the lake gradually silts up becoming a crescent-shaped stretch of marsh. It is formed by the increasing sinuosity of a river.
Log in or subscribe to continueUnlock the full lesson — the teaching content, lesson resources, and the complete Notion version.
Review
- Outline two characteristics of a floodplain. [2]
- Explain how the process of erosion contributes to the formation of a meander. [3]
- Explain how the process of deposition contributes to the formation of a levee. [3]
- Examine how physical factors influence the formation of waterfalls and their characteristics in different drainage basins. [10]
- Examine the importance of erosion and deposition in the formation of river deltas and levees. [10]