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Description
Flashcards by Sharondeep, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Sharondeep
over 10 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| Drainage basin | An area of land drained by a river and its tributaries. |
| Watershed | A ridge of high ground surrounding a basin. |
| Transpiration | Biological process where water is lost from vegetation. |
| Throughfall | Water falling of leaves to the ground. |
| Stemflow | Water reaching the ground by trickling down the stem/trunk. |
| Secondary interception | The presence of undergrowth meaning the water may fall from vegetation to lower vegetation as oppose to the ground. |
| Surface runoff | Surface storage like puddles may flow away over the surface thus becoming surface runoff. |
| Antecedent precipitation | The amount of water already in the soil. |
| Infiltration capacity | The maximum amount of water that can pass into the soil (mm/hour) |
| Throughflow | The lateral movement of water within the soil. |
| Capillary action | The process by which water is drawn up to the surface (during dry periods). |
| Percolation | the slow passage of a liquid through a filtering medium |
| Water table | the level below which the ground is saturated with water |
| Channel flow | Water that enters the river channel and then flows out of the drainage basin. |
| Channel storage | Water stored in the rivers channel. |
| The water balance | An equilibrium state in the basin where inputs are equal to outputs. |
| Soil moisture deficit | When E > P |
| Cumecs | Cubic metres per second |
| Bankfull discharge | When river discharge fill the channel to maximum capacity without spilling over onto the floodplains. The maximum volumetric capacity of the channel. |
| Velocity | Rate of flow. |
| Isovels | Lines of equal velocity. |
| Thalweg | The line of the fastest flowing water. |
| Sinuous | Having many curves and turns. |
| Eddies | Circular movements of water causing small whirlpools. |
| Longitudinal profile (of a river) | The plot of a river's height above base level against the distance from source to mouth. |
| Potholing | An extreme form of abrasion where small pebbles whirl round in circular eddies and drill holes into the rock bed. |
| Unconsolidated | Loose material |
| Cavitation | A type of extreme hydraulic erosion. Where there is exaggerated turbulence, shockwaves from the bursting air bubbles hit and weaken the banks. |
| River competence | The maximum size of material that a river is able to transport. |
| Capacity | The total load actually transported by a river. |
| Saltation | Pebbles, sand and gravel being temporarily picked up and bounced along the riverbed. |
| Traction | Larger boulders or cobbles being rolled along or slid along the bed. |
| Impermeable | Not allowing fluids to pass through. |
| Spur | A Spur in Geography is a narrow neck of highland extending into a river valley, often forming the divide between two tributaries. |
| Headward erosion | Headward erosion is the lengthening and cutting upstream of a valley or a gully at its head. |
| Gorge | A narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it. |
| Salinity | The dissolved salt content of a body of water. |
| Colloids | Suspended particles to light or small to settle. |
| Turbidity | Together, colloids make a fluid look cloudy, hazy. The more cloudy a fluid looks the more turbid it is. |
| Delta | A river delta is a landform that forms at the mouth of a river, where the river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, or reservoir. Deltas form from deposition of sediment carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth. Over long periods, this deposition builds the characteristic geographic pattern of a river delta. |
| Floodplain | An area of land prone to flooding when a river has exceeded bankfull discharge. |
| A bluff line | A prominent slope marks the edge of floodplain. Bluffs are truncated spurs. |
| Truncated spurs | They are rounded areas of land which have been cut off. They are often rounded at the top but steep at the bottom. They are formed when glaciers move through the main valley and cut off spurs. |
| Accretion | The gradual accumulation of layers or matter. |
| Anastomosing | The reconnection of two streams that previously branched out. |
| Fluvioglacial landscapes | Fluvioglacial landforms are landforms molded by glacial meltwater. |
| Ephemeral | Existing only briefly. |
| Helicoidal flow | Helicoidal flow is the cork-screw-like flow of water in a meander. It is one example of a secondary flow. |
| Points of inflexion | Where the meander bends. |
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