Rivers Review

Introductory Slide Show on Rivers

• Speed means energy and energy means erosion
• Stages of a river - Know the characteristics - Youthful, Mature and Old Age.
• Drainage basins (catchment area, watershed)
• Drainage patterns - dendritic, trellis, parallel, radial  (underlying surface determines pattern)
• Tributaries, Interfluves and Divides
• Know the creation of the following:
• Levee
• Meander
• Oxbow Lake
• Delta
• floodplains
• yazoo streams
   

Moving Water

• Runoff - Overland Flow and Ground Water
• Inflitration and the factors that influence.
• Stream Velocity - slope and friction with the bed
• Discharge
• Stream Load - graphs
   

Stream Transport

• A river carries its load in three ways: Dissolved, Bed Load and Suspended Load
• Competence and Capacity
• Critical Erosion Velocity - Settling Velocity
• How a dam can affect a river's balance
• Stream Equilibrium - why a river meanders - pools and riffles
• Can a river rejuvenate itself - yes - Lowering Sea Level, Uplift of land, Increase in rainfall
• Floodplains
• How levees can be dangerous.
   

The Hydrograph Lab

• Interception, Infiltration and Surface Runoff - Know there relationship during a rainfall.
• Understand the effects of different types of soil, vegetation cover and land cover like Urban land use.
• Understand the idea of Lag Time (Peak of Storm and Peak of Discharge) - also relate this to different types of land uses like Agriculture, Natural and Urban.
   
• Dams - Three Gorges Dam, BEFORE, DURING, AFTER the dam (from in silenced rivers)