River Environments Key Words

?

Key Words

1.1 Hydrological cycle

  • Closed system: A fixed amount of water because neither leaves or enters

  • Stores: Features that receive, hold and release water

  • Transfers: The movement of water between stores in the hydrological cycle

  • Reservoirs: An area where water is collected and stored for human use

  • Groundwater: Water contained within the soil derived from percolation

  • Aquifer: Permeable rock that can hold and transfer underground water

  • Flows: Steady streams of movement from one point to another

  • Evapotranspiration: Release of moisture from the land by evaporation and transpiration

1.2 Drainage Basins and their Features

  • Open system: A system with outputs and inputs

  • Discharge: Amount of water flowing in a river channel at a particular location and time

  • Watershed: The boundary between neighbouring drainage basins

  • Estuary: Mouth of a river as it enters the sea

  • Channel network: Pattern of linked streams and rivers within a drainage basin

1.3 River Regimes and Hydrographs

  • River regime: The seasonal variations in the discharge of a river

  • Hydrograph: A graph showing the discharge of the water between the air, land, and sea

  • Base flow: The usual level of a river

  • Storm flow: The increase in stream velocity caused by a period of intense rainfall

  • Dams: A large structure built across a river to hold back a large body of water for human use

  • Abstraction: Removal of water from rivers, lakes, and from below the water table

1.4 Fluvial Processes

  • Erosion: The wearing away and removal of material by a moving force

  • Transport: The movement of a river’s load

  • Deposition: The dropping

Comments

No comments have yet been made