O level Geography revision

Uses of rivers to man

• Navigation
• Supplies water for agriculture
• Supplies water for domestic use
• Supplies water for industrial use
• Generation of hydro electric power
• Fishing, sports e.g. Trout fishing
• Tourism
• River valleys can be used for agriculture because
of fertile alluvial soils
 Multipurpose projects
A multi purpose river is a river which is used for a
number of purposes .e.g.
• Kariba dam
Can be used for
• Hydroelectricity generation
• Fishing
• Water sports
• Lake transportation
• Domestic water supply
 Problems of such projects
• Drowning of animals
• Loss of agricultural land
• Displacement of people
• Less water downstream destroys habitats
• Water borne diseases.
• Drowning of people
• Dangerous animals such as crocodiles
• Frequent earth tremors
 Pollution of rivers by man
• Oil leaks from boats
• Industrial waste
• Sewage
• Litter
• Poisonous chemicals such as cyanide from
mining activities
• Growth of weeds
• siltation
 Solution to some of the problems
• Educating people on the need to mange their
natural resource
• Putting in place laws against water pollution,
stream bank cultivation
 Problems of rivers to man
• Water borne diseases
• Communication barriers
• Flooding
• Drowning of people
 Drainage patterns
• show us the way in which a river and its
tributaries are aligned within a drainage basin.
• Drainage patterns can be accordant to
structure or can be discordant to structure
 Drainage patterns accordant to
structure
• These are patterns which have a relationship
with the structure of the rock over which they
pass through. Examples include
• Dendritic
• Centripetal
• Deranged
• Radial
• trellis
 Dendritic
• looks like the tree trunk and its branches
• Tributary steams join the main river at acute
angles
• Develops in areas of gently sloping uniform
rock. See diagram
 Trellis drainage pattern
• Develops in areas of alternate hard and soft rocks
• The main river is known as the consequent
stream and
• the tributary streams join the main river at 90
degrees
• Some tributary streams can flow in a direction
which is opposite that of the main river and such
streams are called obsequent streams. See
diagram
 Centripetal

• The rivers flow inwards towards a point.

• Occurs due to the underlying rock forming a
basin.
• Examples include the Sea of Galilee
 Rectangular drainage
• Occurs in faulted areas
• The main river makes sharp turns following
the fault lines. See diagram
 Radial drainage pattern
• Develops in areas where there are dome
shaped hills such as volcanic mountains.
• The streams flow out from a central dome
radiating outwards like the spokes of a wheel.
• Examples include the uplifted granite dome of
Dartmoor, or the perfect volcanic cone of Mt.
Taranaki in New Zealand.
• See diagram.
 Parallel drainage
• Composed of streams which run parallel to
each other in areas of uniformly dipping rock
or areas recently exposed by the regression of
the sea.
• The underlying rock is uniform and the surface
is flat
 Deranged pattern
• Occur in areas where there has been
insufficient time for drainage integration.
• Common in glaciated valleys where glacial
deposition of sands, gravels can completely
offset the original pattern
• Such a pattern is contorted (has no order)
 Summary of all patterns
• See diagram
 Drainage patterns which are
discordant to structure
• These are patterns which have no relationship
with the structure of the rock over which they
pass through. Examples include
• Antecedent drainage
• Superimposed drainage
 Antecedent drainage

• Develops in areas where the river manages to

keep pace with uplift cutting downwards such
that it maintains its original course even if it
means that the river cuts across a mountain or
ridge.
• It also occurs in areas where faulting takes
place and displacement is slow to allow the
river to down cut
Antecedence due to faulting
 Super imposed drainage

• Takes place in areas where a river develops on

a relatively young and soft rock which overlies
older and harder rock, the soft rock is later
removed by erosional processes leaving the
river imprinted on a much older rock to which
it has no relationship.
• Here the river cuts into the underlying hard
rock regardless of its structure
The development of super imposed
drainage
 The log profile of rivers
• Shows the river valley characteristics from
source to mouth
• It is divided into 3 parts
• The upper course
• The middle
• lower
 The upper course
• V shaped valleys
• Interlocking spurs
• Waterfall
• rapids
 V-shaped valley
• Steep sides
• Caused by active vertical erosion in fast
flowing rivers
• Where the river bed is made up of rocks of
different resistance to erosion then rapids can
be produced
 Rapids
• These develop in areas where the gradient of
slope increases without a sudden break in
slope
• They also develop in areas where there are
gently dipping bands of harder rock.
• Rapids increase turbulence and hence the
erosive power of the river.
 Interlocking spurs
• - As the river cuts its deep V-shaped valley in
its upper course, it follows the path of the
easiest rock to erode.
• Thus it tends to wind its way along, leaving
the more resistant areas of rock as
interlocking spurs.
Diagram showing interlocking spurs
Contour representation of spurs
Truncated spurs
 Waterfalls
• A waterfall will form where a band of harder rock lies over a
softer one.
• As the river flows over the edge of the harder, more
resistant rock into an area of softer rock, it erodes away the
softer rock creating a water fall
• With time due to hydraulic action a plunge pool develops
at the base of the waterfall and undercutting of the softer
rock occurs creating an overhang .
• Once the overhang is big enough the whole thing collapses
due to gravity and its own weight.
• The whole process then occurs again. This means that over
time waterfalls will move backwards up the valley, leaving a
steep sided gorge in front of them. See diagram
Diagram showing a waterfall
Diagrams showing the different ways
of waterfall formation
 Features of the middle and lower
course
• Meanders
• Pools and riffles
• Oxbow lakes
• Flood plain
• Levees
• Point bars
• River cliffs
 Meanders
• Meanders are basically bends in the river, where the
faster water on the outside of the bend has cut into the
bank, eroding it and creating a river cliff.
• At the same time the slow moving water on the inside
of the bend deposits its load, building up a shallow
slip-off slope.
• Meanders occur in the mid course and lower course of
the river, where it is beginning to cut laterally as it gets
closer to base level.
• Meanders migrate downstream as they cut through
the valley sides. This creates a line of parallel cliffs
along the sides of the valley creating a bluff line.
Diagram showing a meandering
channel
Diagram showing a river cliff and a
point bar
 Ox-Bow Lakes
• In the lower course of the river meanders can become
so pronounced that they can form ox-bow lakes.
• In the lower course the rapid lateral erosion cuts into
the neck of the meander, narrowing it considerably.
• Eventually the force of the river breaks through the
neck during times of high discharge, and as this is the
easiest way for the water to go, the old meander is left
without any significant amount of water flowing
through it.
• Quickly the river deposits material along the side of its
new course, which completely block off the old
meander, creating an ox-bow lake.
Stages in the development of a
meander
 Point bars
• Develop where stream flow is locally reduced
because of friction and reduced water depth
• In a meandering stream, point bars tend to be
common on the inside of a channel bend.
Diagram showing the position
of a point bar
 Pools and riffles
• . Riffles, another type of coarse deposit,
develop beneath the thalweg in locations
where the faster flow moves vertically up in
the channel. Between the riffles are scoured
pools where material is excavated when the
zone of maximum stream velocity approaches
the stream's bed.
Diagram showing pools
and riffles
 The Floodplain

• Relatively flat areas which develop when streams over-top

their levees spreading discharge and suspended sediments
over the land surface during floods.
• Repeated flood cycles over time can result in the deposition
of many successive layers of alluvial material.
• Floodplain deposits can raise the elevation of the stream
bed.
• This process is called aggradation.
• Floodplains can also contain sediments deposited from the
lateral migration of the river channel.
• In meandering streams, channel migration leads to the
vertical deposition of point bar deposits
Main features of the floodplain
 Levees
• Are ridges found along the sides of the stream
channel composed of sand or gravel.
• Levees are approximately one half to four
times the channel width in diameter. Upon
retreat of the flood waters, stream velocities
are reduced causing the deposition of
alluvium.
Cross section of a flood plain