Rivers and Inland Waters
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Created by:
nreekcamp17 on October 31, 2011
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48 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Stream | A small or large flow of water in natural channels. |
| River | A relatively large flow of water in a natural channel. |
| Brook | A term used for a small stream. |
| Creek | A term used for a small stream. |
| Gradient | The slope of a stream or river expressed as a loss in elevation of the stream or river with distance downstream. |
| Headwaters | The areas of the river system that are the farthest away from the mouth of the river. |
| Down-cutting | Erosion of a valley by a stream. |
| Floodplains | The area of a river valley next to the channel, which is built of deposited sediments and is covered with water when the river overflows its banks at flood stage. |
| Stream Discharge | The volume of water passing a point along the river in a unit of time. |
| Meandering Stream | A stream with a channel that curves or loops back and forth on a wide floodplain. |
| Meander Bend | One of a series of curves or loops in the course of a mature river. |
| Meander Scars | Low ridges on the part of the floodplain inside the meander bend caused by deposition of sediment on the point bar during a flood. |
| Oxbow Lake | A crescent- shaped body of standing water situated in the abandoned channel (oxbow) of a meander after the stream formed a neck cutoff and the ends of the original bend were plugged up by fine sediment. |
| Aquifer | A body of porous rock or sediment that is sufficiently permeable to conduct groundwater. |
| Tributary System | A group of streams that contribute water to another stream |
| Trunk Stream | A major river, fed by a number of fairly large tributaries; the main stream in a river system. |
| Distributary System | An outflowing branch of a river, such as what occurs characteristically on a delta. |
| Drainage Basin | The area from which all of the rain that falls eventually flows to the same final destination, usually the ocean. |
| Drainage Divide | The boundary between adjacent drainage basins. |
| Water Cycle (Or Hydrologic Cycle) | The constant circulation of water from the sea, through the atmosphere, to the land, and its eventual return to the atmosphere by way of transpiration and evaporation from the land and evaporation from the sea. |
| Closed System | A system in which material moves from place to place but is not gained or lost from the system. |
| Evaporation | The change of state of matter from a liquid to a gas. Heat is absorbed. |
| Precipitation | Water that falls to the surface from the atmosphere as rain, snow, hail, or sleet. |
| Surface Runoff | The part of the water that travels over the ground surface without passing beneath the surface. |
| Ground Water | The part of the subsurface water that is in the zone of saturation, including underground streams. |
| Transpiration | The process by which water absorbed by plants, usually through the roots, is emitted into the atmosphere from the plant surface in the form of water vapor. |
| Reservoir | A place in the Earth system that holds water. |
| Flux | The movement of water from one reservoir to another. |
| Zone of Aeration | Zone of mostly air but some interstitial water. |
| Zone of Saturation | Zone in which pores completely saturated with water; main aquifer storage zone. |
| Infiltration | The slow passage of a liquid through a filtering medium |
| Capillarity | The force of attraction between water and a solid surface such as a sediment grain. |
| Water Table | The upper surface of the zone of saturation. |
| Aquifer | A layer of rock that is sufficiently porous to absorb and transmit water in quantities that can be economically removed. |
| Confined Aquifer | When an aquifer is bounded by (2) aquitards (one above and one below). |
| Artesian Well | A well in which water rises because of pressure within the aquifer. |
| Water Cycle | The continuous movement of water between Earth's surface and the air, changing from liquid to gas to liquid. |
| Porosity | A measure of the percentage of pores (open spaces) in a material. |
| Aquifer | Any body of sediment or rock that has sufficient size and sufficiently high porosity and permeability to provide an adequate supply of water from wells. |
| Permeability | A measure of how easy it is to force water to flow through a porous material. |
| Saturated Zone | The zone, beneath the water table where all of the pores are filled with water. |
| Water Table | The surface between the saturated zone and the unsaturated zone (zone of aeration). |
| Evapotranspiration | Loss of water from a land area through transpiration of plants and evaporation from the soil and surface water. |
| Unconfined Aquifer | An aquifer that has a free connection upward to the surface. |
| Recharge | Addition of new water to an aquifer by downward flow of surface water. |
| Aquiclude | A body of rock that will absorb water slowly, but will not transmit it fast enough to supply a well. |
| Aqueduct | A system of large surface pipes and channels used to transport water. |
| Desalination | The process of removing dissolved salts from sea water in order to make it potable. |
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