River Systems Year 9

River systems
Rivers and the water cycle

Introduction
• All rivers receive their water from precipitation- that is rain, hail , sow and sleet.
but the relationship between precipitation and the amount of water in a river,
know as discharge, is not straightforward.
• River; a large natural stream of water flowing in a channel to the sea, a
lake, or another river.
• Only a small amount of water that falls reaches the river, which is just part of the
water, or hydrological, cycle.
• Rivers have three main roles: to erode the river channel, to transport material,
and to create new erosional and depositional landforms.
• Erosion, transportation and deposition are all found in all parts of a river,
although one process tends to be dominant. For example, there is more erosion
in the upper part, while there is more deposition in the lower course.
• This is related to the changes in a river downstream.
Energy in a river
• This is a stream’s ability to erode, transport or deposit. There are two
types of energy:
Potential energy, provided by the weight of elevation of the water
Kinetic energy, produced by gravity and the flow of the water
• About 95% of energy is used to overcome friction with the end and
the banks. The rougher the channel the more energy will e lost. In a
smooth channel there is very little frictional loss and therefore there
is more energy available for work
River systems
Changing Channel characteristics
Drainage basins
• A drainage basin is an area within which water supplied by precipitation
is transferred to the ocean, a lake or larger stream.
• It includes all that area that is drained by a river and its
tributaries( smaller rivers that join the larger river) and is the main unit
for the study of rivers. The confluence is the point where a smaller river
joins a larger river.
• Drainage basins are divided by watersheds- a imaginary line separating
adjacent basins.
• In studying rivers, reference is made to the basin's hydrological cycle
• The basin cycle is a open system: the main input is precipitation which is
regulated by various means of storage.
hydrological cycle
• The hydrological cycle refers to the movement of water between
atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. At a global scale, it can be
thought of a closed system with o losses from the system.
• Water can be stored at a number of places within the cycle. These
stores include vegetation, surface, soil moisture, ground water and
water channels. The global hydrological cycle also includes stores in the
ocean and the atmosphere.
• Human modifications are made at every scale. Good examples include
large- scale changes of channel flow, irrigation ad drainage, and
abstraction of ground water and surface for domestic and industrial use
hydrological cycle
precipitation
• The main characteristics that affect local hydrology are the amount of
precipitation, the seasonality, intensity, type (rain, snow, hue etc), geographic
distributional variability. For rain to occur, three factors must occur:
Air is saturated –that is, has a relative humidity of 100%
It contains particles of soot, dust, ash, ice etc
Its temperature is below dew point – that is, the temperature is at the level where the
relative humidity is 100%, saturation is complete and clouds form.
• Clouds are tiny droplets suspended in air, while rain droplets are much larger.
Therefore cloud droplets must get much larger, although not necessarily by
normal condensation processes. There are a number of theories to suggest
how raindrops are formed.
Interception
• Interception refers to water stored by vegetation. There are three
main components:
Interception loss- water that is retained by plant surfaces ad later evaporated
away or absorbed by plant
Throughfall water that either falls through gaps in the vegetation or drops
from leaves, twigs or stems
Stemflow – water that trickles along twigs and branches and finally down the
trunk
Evaporation
• Evaporation is the process by which a liquid or a solid is changed into
a gas. Its most important source is from oceans and seas. Evaporation
increases under warm, dry windy conditions.
• Factors affecting evaporation include temperature, humidity, ad
windspeed. Of these, temperature is the most important factor
• Evapotranspiration
Infiltration
• Infiltration capacity decreases with time through a period of rainfall
until a more or less constant value is reached.
• Infiltration rates of 0-4 mm/hour are common on clays whereas 3-12
mm/hour are common on sands. Vegetation also increases infiltration.
• On are soils, infiltration rates may reach 10 mm/hour.
• Infiltrated water is chemically rich as it picks up minerals and organic
acids from vegetation and soil.
• Infiltration is affected by the same factors that influence overland
runoff but in a different way
The River’s long profile
• A long profile is a line representing the river from its source (where it starts)
to its mouth (where it meets the sea). It shows how the river changes over its
course.
• Upper course - in the upper course, where the river starts, there is often an
upland area. The river's load is large in the upper course, as it hasn't been
broken down by erosion yet. Erosion is the main process
• Middle course, where it is less steep. both erosion and deposition occur here
• Lower course - in the lower course, the land is a lot flatter. The river's load
is fine sediment, as erosion has broken down the rocks. Deposition wins out
in the lower course. As the river loses energy.
River processes
• Erosion; is the process that wears away the river bed and banks. Erosion also
breaks up the rocks that are carried by the river. There are four types of
erosion
• The main types of erosion include
Abrasion( corrasion), the wearing away of the bed and bank by the load carried by a
river
Attrition. The wearing away of the load carried by a river which creates smaller,
rounder particles
Hydraulic action, which is the force of air and water on the sides of rivers and in
cracks
Solution, the removal of chemical ions, especially calcium, which causes rocks to
dissolve.
main types of erosion
Transport
• Rivers transport particles, from
fine ones such as silt in turbid
water to coarser ones such as sand,
gravel, and boulders associated
with bed-load transport.
• The speed and turbulence of
currents enable transportation of
these materials. When riverbed
gradient or the river flow
diminishes, particles tend to drop
out.
Deposition
• Deposition occurs as river slows down and it loses its energy. Typically,
this occurs as a river floods across a floodplain or enters the sea, or
behind a dam. It is also more likely during low flow conditions( such
as in a drought) conditions – as log as the river is carrying sediment.
• The larger, heavier particles are deposited first , the smaller lighter
ones later. Features of deposition include deltas, levees, slip-off
slopes(point bars), oxbow lakes, raided channels and floodplains
Depositional activities
Questions
• Briefly describe the four main ways in which rivers erode.
• Suggest how they will vary with
i. Velocity of water
ii. Rock type
iii. pH of water.
• What are the main types of transport?
Cross- profiles
• The course a river takes is split into three stages, the upper, middle and
lower stage. In the upper stage(V – shaped), the river is close to its source
and high above its base level (the lowest point the river can erode to). In
the lower stage the river is far away from its source, close to the mouth
and not far above its base level. In the middle stage, it’s somewhere in
between.
• The total energy that a river possesses varies from one stage to another
because of changes in the river’s height, gradient and speed.
• In the upper course, the gradient of the river is steep and the river is high
above sea level giving it a large amount of gravitational potential energy
that can be converted to kinetic energy later on.
Formation of waterfalls
Cross- profiles
the six river landforms
• V-shaped valley
• Interlocking spurs
• Waterfall
• Gorge
• Meander
• oxbow
Cross- section through a meander
Oxbow lakes
Oxbow lakes are the result of erosion and
deposition. Lateral erosion caused y fast flow
in the meanders, is concentrated on the
outer deeper bank.
During times of flooding, erosion increases
The river breaks through and creates a new,
steeper channel.
In time, the old meander is closed off by
deposition to form an oxbow lake.
Floodplain
The area covered by water when a river
floods is known as it floodplain. When a
river’s discharge exceeds the capacity of the
channel, water rises over the river banks and
floods it surrounding low-lying area.
Sometimes a floodplain will it self be eroded

following a fall in sea level.
When this happens, the remnants of the old
floodplain are left behind as river terraces.
These are useful for settlement as they are
above the new level of floodplain and free
from flooding.
Floods
• Floods occur when water overflow the river’s channel.
• Causes of floods
1. heavy rain is the main cause
2. When there is a lot of snow and it melt quickly
Flush floods – a burst of heavy rain can cause a sudden flood called flash flood
Solution to flood
1. Long term solution- build embankment( high banks), Dig new river channels,
access where to build well, let nature help
2. Short-term- put up potable flood barrier, put up anti- flood shutters on homes

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River systems

Rivers and the water cycle

Sometimes a floodplain will it self be eroded

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