Geography Key Words

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  • Created by: Joe
  • Created on: 11-05-14 12:01
Drainage basin
An area of land drained by a main river and its tributaries
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Watershed
The boundary of a drainage basin. A higher ridge of land surrounding the basin
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Inputs
How Water enters the system- Precipitation
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Stores
Where water is held within the system e.g. a lake
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Transfers
how water flows through the system
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Outputs
how water is lost from the system e.g. rivers carrying water to the sea and evapotranspiration
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Precipitation
Rain, snow, sleet or hail that falls to the ground
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Surface runoff
Occurs either when a storm is too heavy for water to infiltrate the soil, where the soil is impermeable or when the soil is saturated
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Interception
When vegetation restricts the amount of water from reaching the ground or slows down the flow of water
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Infiltration
The downward movement of water through tiny pores in the soil
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Evaporation
Loss of water or moisture directly from rivers or lakes
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Transpiration
Loss of water or moisture from vegetation
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Water Table
When all the pores have been filled with water (saturated)
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Throughflow
Movement of water sideways through the soil
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Groundwater flow
The slowedt form of water transfer ot flow
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Percolation
The downward movement of water through saturated rock/soil to form groundwater
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Flood Hydrograph
A graph to show the changes in river discharge over time in response to a rainfall event such as a rainstorm
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Peak rainfall
The maximum amont of rainfall
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Discharge
The amount of water in the river passing a given point at a given time- cumecs/m s
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Peak discharge
the maximum amount of water flowing past a given point at a given time
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Rising limb
shows the increasing discharge as water flows within the river basin overland and via throughflow
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Falling limb
shows when the discharge returns to normal(baseflow) on hydrograph
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Baseflow
The standard water level within the river channel
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Lag time
The time itn takes for the water to reach the river channel. This is the gap between peak rainfall and peak discharge
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Hard engineering
When people using machinery to build defences to CONTROL natural processes e.g. dams, artificial levees, sluices, straightening and widening of the channel
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Soft engineering
working WITH the environment RATHER then trying to control it e.g. imposing building restrictions and using sandbags
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

The boundary of a drainage basin. A higher ridge of land surrounding the basin

Back

Watershed

Card 3

Front

How Water enters the system- Precipitation

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Where water is held within the system e.g. a lake

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

how water flows through the system

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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