River Studies

River Studies

During your course you may go on a field-trip or study a river case study for your geographical skills paper.

How to measure the width of a river

The width can be measured with a tape measure by stretching it from bank to bank. It needs to be kept taut to be accurate.

How to measure the depth

Once the tape measure is stretched across the channel you need to move a metre ruler along at regular intervals. This in turn will provide you with a cross section of the channel.

Velocity

Velocity can be measured in two ways either with a flowmeter which may be provided at the centre or by playing 'pooh sticks'. Pooh sticks consists of a floatable object being floated down the river this measures the surface velocity whereas a flowmeter will measure the channel velocity. The flowmeter has propeller which moves…