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A diagram of a possible river with the Strahler number of each tributary labeled. In hydrology , a stream order is a positive integer used to describe the level of river branching in a drainage basin. [ 18 ]
River ecosystems are flowing waters that drain the landscape, and include the biotic (living) interactions amongst plants, animals and micro-organisms, as well as abiotic (nonliving) physical and chemical interactions of its many parts. [1] [2] River ecosystems are part of larger watershed networks or catchments, where smaller headwater streams ...
The terms river morphology and its synonym stream morphology are used to describe the shapes of river channels and how they change in shape and direction over time. The morphology of a river channel is a function of a number of processes and environmental conditions, including the composition and erodibility of the bed and banks (e.g., sand, clay, bedrock); erosion comes from the power and ...
Dendritic drainage: the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Tibet, seen from space: snow cover has melted in the valley system. In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of land, whether a particular region is ...
Rapids cause water aeration of the stream or river, resulting in better water quality. [2] For a rapid to form, a necessary condition is the presence of a gradient, which refers to the river or stream's downward slope. When a river has a larger gradient, the water flows downhill faster. [3] Gradients are typically measured in feet per mile. [4]
The source of a river or stream (its point of origin) can consist of lakes, swamps, springs, or glaciers. A typical river has several tributaries; each of these may be made up of several other smaller tributaries, so that together this stream and all its tributaries are called a drainage network.
Point bars are typically found in the slowest moving, shallowest parts of rivers and streams, [5] and are often parallel to the shore and occupy the area farthest from the thalweg, [6] on the outside curve of the river bend in a meandering river. Here, at the deepest and fastest part of the stream is the cut bank, the area of a meandering river ...
However, in the Strahler system, adopted in 1957, only that part of the mainstem below the tributary of the next highest rank gets the highest number. [2] In the United States, the Mississippi River mainstem achieves a Strahler number of 10, the highest in the nation. Eight rivers, including the Columbia River, reach 9. Streams with no ...