river
Introduction
any natural stream of water that flows (fluvial process) in a channel (streambed) with defined banks (ultimately from Latin ripa, “bank”). Modern usage includes rivers that are multichanneled, intermittent, or ephemeral in flow and channels that are practically bankless. The concept of channeled surface flow, however, remains central to the definition. The word stream (derived ultimately from the Indo-European root srou-) emphasizes the fact of flow; as a noun it is synonymous with river and is often preferred in technical writing. Small natural watercourses are sometimes called rivulets, but a variety of names—including branch, brook, burn, and creek—are more common, occurring regionally to nationally in place-names. Arroyo and (dry) wash connote ephemeral streams or their resultant channels. Tiny streams or channels are referred to as rills or runnels.
Rivers are nourished by precipitation, by direct overland runoff, through springs and seepages, or from meltwater at the edges of snowfields and glaciers. The contribution of direct precipitation on the water surface is usually minute, except where much of a catchment area is occupied by lakes. River water losses result from seepage and percolation into shallow or deep aquifers (permeable rock layers that readily transmit water) and particularly from evaporation. The difference between the water input and loss sustains surface discharge or streamflow. The amount of water in river systems at any time is but a tiny fraction of the Earth's total water; 97 percent of all water is contained in the oceans (ocean) and about three-quarters of fresh water is stored as land ice; nearly all the remainder occurs as groundwater. Lakes hold less than 0.5 percent of all fresh water, soil moisture accounts for about 0.05 percent, and water in river channels for roughly half as much, 0.025 percent, which represents only about one four-thousandth of the Earth's total fresh water.
Water is constantly cycled through the systems of land ice, soil, lakes, groundwater (in part), and river channels, however. The discharge of rivers to the oceans delivers to these systems the equivalent of the water vapour that is blown overland and then consequently precipitated as rain or snow—i.e., some 7 percent of mean annual precipitation on the globe and 30 percent of precipitation on land areas.
Rivers are 100 times more effective than coastal erosion in delivering rock debris to the sea. Their rate of sediment delivery is equivalent to an average lowering of the lands by 30 centimetres (12 inches) in 9,000 years, a rate that is sufficient to remove all the existing continental relief in 25,000,000 years.
Rock debris enters fluvial systems either as fragments eroded from rocky channels or in dissolved form. During transit downstream, the solid particles undergo systematic changes in size and shape, traveling as bed load or suspension load. Generally speaking, except in high latitudes and on steep coasts, little or no coarse bed load ever reaches the sea. Movement of the solid load down a river valley is irregular, both because the streamflow is irregular and because the transported material is liable to enter temporary storage, forming distinctive river-built features that range through riffles, midstream bars, point bars, floodplains, levees, alluvial fans, and river terraces. In one sense, such geomorphic features belong to the same series as deltas, estuary fills, and the terrestrial sediments of many inland basins.
Rates of erosion and transportation, and comparative amounts of solid and dissolved load, vary widely from river to river. Least is known about dissolved load, which at coastal outlets is added to oceanic salt. Its concentration in tropical rivers is not necessarily high, although very high discharges can move large amounts; the dissolved load of the lowermost Amazon (Amazon River) averages about 40 parts per million, whereas the Elbe and the Rio Grande, by contrast, average more than 800 parts per million. Suspended load for the world in general perhaps equals two and one-half times dissolved load. Well over half of suspended load is deposited at river mouths as deltaic and estuarine sediment. About one-quarter of all suspended load is estimated to come down the Ganges–Brahmaputra and the Huang Ho (Yellow River), which together deliver some 4,500,000,000 tons a year; the Yangtze (Yangtze River), Indus, Amazon, and Mississippi (Mississippi River) deliver quantities ranging from about 500,000,000 to approximately 350,000,000 tons a year. Suspended sediment transport on the Huang Ho equals a denudation rate of about 3,090 tons per square kilometre (8,000 tons per square mile) per year; the corresponding rate for the Ganges–Brahmaputra is almost half as great. Extraordinarily high rates have been recorded for some lesser rivers: for instance, 1,060 tons per square kilometre per year on the Ching and 1,080 tons per square kilometre per year on the Lo, both of which are loess-plateau tributaries of the Huang Ho.
This article concentrates on the distribution, drainage patterns, and geometry of river systems; its coverage of the latter includes a discussion of channel patterns and such related features as waterfalls. Considerable attention is also given to fluvial landforms and to the processes involved in their formation. Additional information about the action of flowing water on the Earth's surface is provided in the article structural landform: Stream valleys and canyons (valley). Certain aspects of the changes in rivers through time are described in climate: Atmospheric humidity and precipitation: Effects of precipitation (climate), and the general interrelationship of river systems to other components of the Earth's hydrosphere is treated in hydrosphere: Biochemical properties of the hydrosphere: Rivers and ocean waters (hydrosphere). For information concerning the plant and animal forms that inhabit the riverine environment, see inland water ecosystem: Aquatic ecosystems: Riverine ecosystems (boreal forest).
Importance of rivers
Significance in early human settlements
The inner valleys of some great alluvial rivers contain the sites (hydraulic civilization) of ancestral permanent settlements, including pioneer cities. Sedentary settlement in Hither Asia began about 10,000 years ago at the site of Arīḥā (ancient Jericho). Similar settlement in the Tigris–Euphrates (Tigris-Euphrates river system) and Nile (Nile River) valleys dates back to at least 6000 BP (years before present). The first settlers are thought to have practiced a hunting economy, supplemented by harvesting of wild grain. Conversion to the management of domesticated animals and the cultivation of food crops provided the surpluses that made possible the rise of towns, with parts of their populations freed from direct dependence on food getting. Civilization in the Indus Valley, prominently represented at Mohenjo-daro, dates from about 4500 BP, while civilization in the Ganges (Ganges River) Valley can be traced to approximately 3000 BP. Permanent settlement in the valley of the Huang Ho (Huang He) has a history some 4,000 years long, and the first large irrigation system in the Yangtze catchment dates to roughly the same time. Greek invaders of the Syrdarya, Amu Darya, and other valleys draining to the Aral Sea, east of the Caspian, encountered irrigating communities that had developed from about 2300 BP onward.
The influence of climatic shifts on these prehistoric communities has yet to be worked out satisfactorily. In wide areas, these shifts included episodic desiccation from 12,000 or 10,000 BP onward. In what are now desert environments, increased dependence on the rivers may have proved as much a matter of necessity as of choice. All of the rivers in question have broad floodplains subject to annual inundation by rivers carrying heavy sediment loads. Prehistoric works of flood defense and irrigation demanded firm community structures and required the development of engineering practice. Highly elaborate irrigation works are known from Mohenjo-daro; the ziggurats (ziggurat) (temple mounds) of the Euphrates Valley may well have originated in ancient Egypt (Egypt, ancient) in response to the complete annual inundation of the Nile floodplain, where holdings had to be redefined after each flood subsided. It is not surprising that the communities named have been styled hydraulic civilizations. Yet, it would be oversimplistic to claim that riparian sites held the monopoly of the developments described. Elaborate urban systems arising in Mexico, Peru, and the eastern Mediterranean from about 4000 BP onward were not immediately dependent on the resources of rivers.
Where riverine cities did develop, they commanded ready means of communication; the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, for instance, were unified by the Nile. At the same time, it can be argued that early riverine and river-dependent civilizations bore the seeds of their own destruction, independent of major climatic variations and natural evolutionary changes in the river systems. High-consuming cities downstream inevitably exploited the upstream catchments, especially for timber. Deforestation there may possibly have led to ruinous silting in downstream reaches, although the contribution of this process to the eventual decline of civilization on the Euphrates and the Indus remains largely a matter of guesswork. An alternative or conjoint possibility is that continued irrigation promoted progressive salinization of the soils of irrigated lands, eventually preventing effective cropping. Salinization is known to have damaged the irrigated lands of Ur, progressively from about 4400 to 4000 BP, and may have ruined the Sumerian Empire of the time. The relative importance of environmental and social deterioration in prehistoric hydraulic civilizations, however, remains a matter of debate. Furthermore, defective design and maintenance of irrigation works promote the spread of malarial mosquitoes, which certainly afflicted the prehistoric hydraulic communities of the lower Tigris–Euphrates Valley. These same communities also may have been affected by bilharziasis, or schistosomiasis (blood fluke disease), which requires a species of freshwater snail for propagation and which even today follows many extensions of irrigation into arid lands.
At various intervals of history, rivers have provided the easiest, and in many areas the only, means of entry and circulation for explorers, traders, conquerors, and settlers. They assumed considerable importance in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and the dismemberment of its roads; regardless of political structures, control of crossing points was expressed in strongholds and the rise of bridge-towns. Rivers in medieval Europe supplied the water that sustained cities (urbanization) and the sewers that carried away city waste and were widely used, either directly or with offtakes, as power sources. Western European history records the rise of 13 national capitals on sizable rivers, exclusive of seawater inlets; three of them, Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade, lie on the Danube, with two others, Sofia and Bucharest, on feeder streams above stem floodplain level. The location of provincial and corresponding capitals is even more strongly tied to riparian sites, as can be readily seen from the situation in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. In modern history, in both North America and northern Asia, natural waterways directed the lines of exploration, conquest, and settlement. In these areas, passage from river system to river system was facilitated by portage along lines defined by temporary ice-marginal or ice-diverted channels. Many pioneer settlers of the North American interior entered by means of natural waterways, especially in Ohio.
Significance to trade (international trade), agriculture, and industry
The historical record includes marked shifts in the appreciation of rivers, numerous conflicts in use demand, and an intensification of use that has rapidly accelerated during the 20th century. External freight trade became concentrated in estuarine ports rather than in inland ports when oceangoing vessels increased in size. Even the port of London, though constrained by high capital investment, has displaced itself toward its estuary. The Amazon remains naturally navigable by ocean ships for 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles), the Yangtze for 1,000 kilometres, and the partly artificial St. Lawrence Seaway for 2,100 kilometres. Internal freight traffic on the Rhine (Rhine River) system and its associated canals amounts to one-quarter or more of the total traffic in the basin and to more than half in some parts. After a period of decline from the later 1800s to about the mid-1900s, water transport of freight has steadily increased. This trend can in large part be attributed to advances in river engineering. Large-scale channel improvement and stabilization projects have been undertaken on many of the major rivers of the world, notably in the northern plain lands of Russia and in the interior of the United States (e.g., various large tributaries of the Mississippi River).
Demand on open-channel water increases as population and per capita water use increase and as underground water supplies fall short. Irrigation (irrigation and drainage) use constitutes a comparatively large percentage of the total supply. With a history of at least 5,000 years, controlled (agricultural technology) irrigation now affects roughly 2,000,000 square kilometres (770,000 square miles) of land, three-quarters of it in East and South Asia and two-fifths in mainland China alone. Most of this activity involves the use of natural floodwater, although reliance on artificially impounded storage has increased rapidly. Irrigation in the 1,300-kilometre length of the Indus Valley, for instance, depends almost exclusively on barrages (i.e., distributor canals) running down alluvial fans and along floodplains.
Present-day demands on rivers as power sources range from the floating of timber, through the use of water for cooling, to hydroelectric generation. Logging in forests relies primarily on flotation during the season of meltwater high flow. Large power plants and other industrial facilities are often located along rivers, which supply the enormous quantities of water needed for cooling purposes (see below). Manufacturers of petrochemicals, steel, and woolen cloth also make large demands. hydroelectric power generation was introduced more than 100 years ago, but the majority of the existing installations have been built since 1950. Many of the world's major industrial nations have developed their hydropower potential to the fullest, though a few like the United States still have some untapped resources. It has been estimated that 75 percent of the potential hydropower in the contiguous United States has been developed, and about 13 percent of the total annual electrical energy demands of the country are met by hydroelectric power plants. By contrast, there are some countries, such as Norway and Switzerland, that depend almost entirely on hydropower for their various electrical energy needs. There is great potential for supplies of hydropower in Central Asia and in many of the developing countries in the region of the Himalayas, Africa, and South America.
Use demand of more immediate kinds are related to freshwater fisheries (including fish-farming (aquaculture)), to dwelling in houseboats, and to recreational activities. Reliable data for these kinds of dependence on rivers do not exist; published estimates that freshwater and migratory fish provide up to about 15 percent of world catch may be too low. Certainly, millions of people are concerned with freshwater fishery and houseboat living, principally in the deltaic areas of East Asia, where dwelling, marketing, and travel can be located almost exclusively on the water. Furthermore, recreational use of rivers has increased over the years. In North America many waterways, particularly those with relatively light commercial traffic, support large numbers of recreational craft. In Europe pleasure cruisers transport multitudes of sightseers up and down the Rhine and Seine each year, while various derelict canals of such systems as the Thames have been restored for boating.
Environmental problems attendant on river use
The ever-increasing exploitation of rivers has given rise to a variety of problems. Extensive commercial navigation of rivers has resulted in much artificial improvement (conservation) of natural channels, including increasing the depth of the channels to permit passage of larger vessels. In some cases, this lowering of the river bottom has caused the water table of the surrounding area to drop, which has adversely affected agriculture. Also, canalization, with its extensive system of locks and navigation dams, often seriously disrupts riverine ecosystems.
An even more far-reaching problem is that of water pollution. Pesticides and herbicides are now employed in large quantities throughout much of the world. The widespread use of such biocides and the universal nature of water makes it inevitable that the toxic chemicals would appear as stream pollutants. Biocides can contaminate water, especially of slow-flowing rivers, and are responsible for a number of fish kills each year.
In agricultural areas the extensive use of phosphates and nitrates as fertilizers may result in other problems. Entering rivers via rainwater runoff and groundwater seepage, these chemicals can cause eutrophication. This process involves a sharp increase in the concentration of phosphorus, nitrogen, and other plant nutrients that promotes the rapid growth of algae (so-called algal blooms) in sluggish rivers and a consequent depletion of oxygen in the water. Under normal conditions, algae contribute to the oxygen balance in rivers and also serve as food for fish, but in excessive amounts they crowd out populations of other organisms, overgrow, and finally die owing to the exhaustion of available nutrients and autointoxication. Various species of bacteria then begin to decay and putrefy the dead algal bodies, the oxidation of which sharply reduces the amount of oxygen in the river water. The water may develop a bad taste and is unfit for human consumption unless filtered and specially treated.
Urban centres located along rivers contribute significantly to the pollution problem as well. In spite of the availability of advanced waste-purification technology, a surprisingly large percentage of the sewage from cities and towns is released into waterways untreated. In effect, rivers are used as open sewers for municipal wastes, which results not only in the direct degradation of water quality but also in eutrophication.
Still another major source of pollutants is industry. Untreated industrial chemical wastes can alter the normal biological activity of rivers, and many of the chemicals react with water to raise the acidity of rivers to a point where the water becomes corrosive enough to destroy living organisms. An example of this is the formation of sulfuric acid from the sulfur-laden residue of coal-mining operations. Although upper limits for concentrations of unquestionably toxic chemicals such as arsenic, barium, cyanide, lead, and phenols have been established for drinking water, no general rules exist for the treatment of industrial wastes because of the wide variety of organic and inorganic compounds involved. Moreover, even in cases where a government-imposed ban checks the further discharge of certain dangerous substances into waterways, the chemicals may persist in the environment for years. Such is the case with polychlorinated biphenyls (polychlorinated biphenyl) (PCBs), the chlorinated hydrocarbon by-products of various industrial processes that were routinely discharged into U.S. waterways until the late 1970s when the federal government not only prohibited the continued discharge of the chemicals into the environment but their production as well. Since PCBs cannot be broken down by conventional waste-treatment methods and are degraded by natural processes very slowly, scientists fear that these compounds will continue to pose a serious hazard for decades to come. PCBs have been found in high concentrations in the fatty tissues of fish, which can be passed up the food chain to humans. An accumulation of PCBs in the human body is known to induce cancer and other severe disorders.
As noted above, many industrial facilities, including nuclear power plants, steel mills, chemical-processing facilities, and oil refineries, use large quantities of water for cooling and return it at elevated temperatures. Such heated water can alter the existing ecology, sometimes sufficiently to drive out or kill desirable species of fish. It also may cause rapid depletion of the oxygen supply by promoting algal blooms.
Ed.
Distribution of rivers in nature
World's largest rivers
World's Principal Rivers, Ranked According to Drainage Area, TableObvious bases by which to compare the world's great rivers include the size of the drainage area, the length of the main stem, and the mean discharge; however, reliable comparative data, even for the world's greatest rivers, do not exist. Some of the values listed in Table 1 (World's Principal Rivers, Ranked According to Drainage Area, Table) are approximate. The Nile, the world's longest river, is about 250 kilometres longer than the Amazon. It is possible that well over 100 of the greatest rivers may exceed a 1,600-kilometre length on their main stems.
Area–length–discharge combinations vary considerably, although length tends to increase with area and area and discharge to increase through their individual ranking series. On all counts except length, the Amazon is the world's principal river; the Congo and the Paraná are among the first five by area and discharge, but the Mississippi, fourth in length and fifth in area, is only seventh in discharge. The Ganges–Brahmaputra, third in discharge, is 13th (or lower) in area and well down the list of length for its two main stems taken separately.
World's Principal Rivers, Ranked According to Drainage Area, TableRanking in Table 1 (World's Principal Rivers, Ranked According to Drainage Area, Table) is by drainage area. In combination, the rivers listed drain some 44,000,000 square kilometres, roughly 30 percent of the world's land area. If volume of discharge is taken to be the basis of comparison, then certain other rivers not tabulated also must be mentioned. The most important of these is the Orinoco (Orinoco River), with a mean discharge of 19,800 cubic metres (700,000 cubic feet) per second and a basin of 948,000 square kilometres. Others are the Irrawaddy (Irrawaddy River), discharge 13,000 cubic metres per second, basin 411,000 square kilometres; and the Mekong (Mekong River), 11,000 cubic metres per second, basin 795,000 square kilometres. The 20 greatest of these rivers, draining about 30 percent of the world's land area, discharge nearly 40 percent of total runoff, reckoned from a mean equivalent of 29.2 centimetres of precipitation. They deliver to the sea about 92 cubic kilometres of water per day, or roughly 33,325 cubic kilometres annually. The Amazon, the Paraná, the Congo, and the Ganges–Brahmaputra, combined, discharge more than 54 cubic kilometres a day and nearly 20,800 cubic kilometres a year, one-third of the world's total runoff to the oceans, with the Amazon alone accounting for almost one-fifth.
World average external runoff is about 0.01 cubic metre per second per square kilometre (0.6 cubic foot per second per square mile). Great rivers with notably higher discharges are fed either by the convectional rains of equatorial regions or by monsoonal rains that are usually increased by altitudinal effects. The Huang Ho averages 0.046 cubic metre per second per square kilometre, the Irrawaddy 0.032 cubic metre per second per square kilometre, the Magdalena (Magdalena River) and the Amazon 0.026 cubic metre per second per square kilometre, the Orinoco 0.021 cubic metre per second per square kilometre, and the Ganges–Brahmaputra above 0.024 cubic metre per second per square kilometre. Very high mean discharges per unit area are also recorded for lesser basins in mountainous coastlands exposed to the zonal westerlies of mid-latitudes. Among great rivers with mean discharges near or not far below world averages per unit area are those of Siberia, the Mackenzie, and the Yukon (Yukon River) (828,000 square kilometres, 5,900 cubic metres per second), all affected by low precipitation for which low evaporation rates barely compensate. The basins of the Mississippi, Niger, and Zambezi include some areas of dry climate. The Nelson illustrates the extreme effects of low precipitation in a cool climate, while the Nile, Murray–Darling, and Shaṭṭ al-ʿArab (Tigris–Euphrates) experience low precipitation combined with high evaporation losses.
World's Principal Rivers, Ranked According to Drainage Area, TableThe lower end of Table 1 (World's Principal Rivers, Ranked According to Drainage Area, Table) lists comparative data for selected rivers in highly inhabited or otherwise hydrographically interesting valleys. The Rhine, Rhône, and Danube record regimes that vary along the length of their courses in response to glacier melt in the headwaters and the entry of contrasting tributaries downstream. The Rio Grande, like the Orange and the Colorado, suffers progressive downstream losses, both natural and irrigational. The Thames is special, as it experiences a very high tidal range in its estuary; this makes flood control especially difficult.
Principles governing distribution and flow
Moisture supply sufficient to sustain channeled surface flow is governed primarily by climate, which regulates precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration water loss caused by vegetation. In rainy tropical and exposed mid-latitude areas, runoff commonly equals 38 centimetres or more of rain a year, rising to more than 102 centimetres. Negligible external runoff occurs in subtropical and rain-shadow deserts; perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral lakes, expanding in response to local runoff, prevent the drainage of desert basins from finding escape routes.
Variation of stream regime
Seasonal variation in discharge defines river regime. Three broad classes of regime can be distinguished for perennial streams. In the megathermal class, related to hot equatorial and tropical climates, two main variants occur; discharge is powerfully sustained throughout the year, usually with a double maximum (two peak values), but in some areas with a strong single maximum. In the mesothermal class some regimes resemble those of tropical and equatorial areas, with single or double summer maxima corresponding to heavy seasonal rainfall, while others include sustained flow with slight warm-season minima. Where mid-latitude climates include dry summers, streamflow decreases markedly and may cease altogether in the warm half of the year. In areas affected by release of meltwater, winter minima and spring maxima of discharge are characteristic. Microthermal regimes, which are influenced by snow cover, include winter minima and summer maxima resulting from snowmelt and convectional rain; alternatively, spring meltwater maxima are accompanied by secondary fall maxima that are associated with late-season thunder rain, or spring snowmelt maxima can be followed by a summer glacier-melt maximum, as on the Amu Darya. Megathermal regimes, which are controlled by systematic fluctuations in seasonal rain, and microthermal regimes, which are controlled by seasonal (season) release of meltwater, may be more reliable than mesothermal regimes.
The regime can vary considerably along the length of a single river in timing and in seasonal characteristics. Spring maxima in the Volga (Volga River) headwaters are not followed by peak flows in the delta until two months later. The October seasonal peak on the upper Niger becomes a December peak on the middle river; the swing from tropical-rainy through steppe climate reduces volume by 25 percent through a 483-kilometre stretch. The seasonal headwater flood wave travels at 0.09 metre per second, taking some four months over 2,011 kilometres, but earlier seasonal peaks are reestablished on the lower river by tributaries fed by hot-season rains. The great Siberian rivers, flowing northward into regions of increasingly deferred thaw, habitually cause extensive flooding in their lower reaches, which remain ice-covered when upstream reaches have already thawed and are receiving the meltwaters of late spring and summer.
Extremes of regime characteristics come into question when streams are classified as perennial, intermittent, or ephemeral. These terms are in common use but lack rigid definition. Whereas the middle and lower reaches of streams in humid regions rarely or never cease flowing and can properly be called perennial, almost every year many of their upstream feeders run dry where they are not fed by springs. In basins cut in impermeable bedrock, prolonged droughts can halt flow in most channel reaches. Karst (limestone country) that has some surface drainage often includes streams that are spatially intermittent; frequently it also contains temporally intermittent streams that flow only when heavy rain raises the groundwater table and reactivates outlets above the usual level. Temporally intermittent streams also occur in dry areas where, at low stage, only some channel reaches contain flowing water.
There is a continuous progression from perennial streams through intermittent streams to ephemeral streams: the latter command much attention, especially because their effects in erosion, transportation, and deposition can be inordinately great and also because they relate closely to periods and cycles of gullying. Their channels generally have higher width–depth ratios than those of unbraided channels in humid areas; e.g., 150:1 or more on small streams. In extreme cases, ephemeral streamflow merges into sheetflood. Streambeds, usually sandy, are nearly flat in cross section but contain low bars where gravel is available. These behave in many ways like riffles or braid bars elsewhere. Although beds and banks are erodible, the fine-material fraction is usually enough to sustain very steep channel banks and gully walls. Rapid downcutting produces flat-floored trenches, called arroyos (arroyo), in distinction from the often V-shaped gullies of humid areas.
Discontinuous vegetation cover, well-packed surface soil, and occasionally intense rainfall promote rapid surface runoff, conversion of overland to channeled flow, and the multiplication of channels. Although reliable comparative data are scarce, it seems likely that ephemeral channel systems develop higher order ranking, area for area, than do perennial streams: channels as high as 11th order are recorded for basins of about 1,300 square kilometres, whereas the Mississippi is usually placed only in the 10th order (see below Horton's laws of drainage composition (river)). This apart, geometry of ephemeral nets obeys the laws of drainage composition that apply to perennial streams: stream length, stream number, channel width, and water discharge can be expressed as exponential functions of stream order, and drainage area and channel slope as power functions, whereas slope and discharge can be expressed as power functions of width and drainage area.
At-a-station (a particular cross section) variations in width, depth, and velocity with variation in discharge in ephemeral streams resemble the corresponding variations in perennial streams. Differences appear, however, when downstream variations are considered. For a given frequency of discharge, the rate of increase in width differs little between the two groups, but ephemeral streams increase the more slowly in depth, becoming increasingly shallow in proportion in the downstream direction. This effect is compensated by a more rapid downstream increase in velocity, which reflects high concentrations of suspended sediment and a resultant reduction of friction. Ultimately, however, the ephemeral flood may lose so much water by evaporation and percolation that the stream is dissipated in a terminal mudflow.
Trenching, the extension of gullies, and their conversion into arroyo systems, implies valley fills of erodible surficial material. Like streams of humid regions, ephemeral stream systems record complex histories of cut and fill: it is reasonable to expect comparable timing for climatically controlled events. Whatever the effect upon stream erosion of historical settlement in the western United States, inland eastern Australia, and New Zealand, the present episode of gullying seems merely to have been intensified by man's use of the land. Accelerated channeling frequently involves three processes not characteristic of humid regions: piping, headcutting, and the formation of channel profiles that are discontinuous over short distances.
In piping, water that has penetrated the topsoil washes out the subsoil where this is exposed in section, forming small tunnels that may attain lengths of many metres. Collapse of tunnel roofs initiates lateral gullying and lengthens existing cuts headward. Headcutting is commonly associated with piping, because headcuts frequently expose the subsoil. A headcut is an abrupt step in the channel profile, some centimetres to some metres high; it may originate merely as a bare or trampled patch in a vegetated channel bed but will increase in height (like some very large waterfalls) as it works upstream. At the foot of the headcut is a plunge pool, downstream of which occurs a depositional slope of low downstream gradient. Formation of successive headcuts, say at an average spacing of 150 metres, and the construction of depositional slopes below each, causes the profile to become stepped. Ephemeral streams with stepped profiles are called discontinuous gullies. Speed of headcut recession varies widely with the incidence and intensity of rainfall; but ultimately, when the whole profile has been worked along and the bed widened, the original even slope is restored, though at a lower level than before.
Determining factors
Long-term effects expressed in mean seasonal regimes and short-term effects expressed in individual peak flows are alike affected by soil-moisture conditions, groundwater balance, and channel storage. Channeled surface flow begins when overland flow becomes deep enough to be erosive; and depth of overland flow represents a balance between short-term precipitation and soil infiltration. Rate and capacity of infiltration depend partly on antecedent conditions and partly on permeability. Seasonal assessments are possible, however; numbers of commercial crops can take up and transpire the equivalent of 38 centimetres of precipitation during the growing season. In many mid-latitude climates the rising curves of insolation and plant growth during spring and early summer cause soil moisture depletion, leading eventually to a deficit that is often strong enough to reduce runoff and streamflow. Soil-moisture recharge during colder months promotes high values of runoff frequently in the spring quite independently of the influence of precipitation regime or snowmelt.
Storage of water in groundwater tables, stream channels, on floodplains, and in lakes damps out variations in flow, whereas snow and ice storage exaggerate peaks. For the world as a whole, groundwater contributes perhaps 30 percent of total runoff, although the proportion varies widely from basin to basin, within basins, and through time. Shallow groundwater tables in contact with river channels absorb and release water, respectively at high and low stage. Percolation to greater depths and eventual discharge through springs delays the entry of water into channels; many groundwater reservoirs carry over some storage from one year to another. Similar carryover occurs with glaciers and to some extent also with permanent snowfields; water abstracted by the ice caps of high latitudes and by large mountain glaciers can be retained for many years, up to about 250,000 years in the central Antarctic cap. Temperate glaciers, however, with temperatures beneath the immediate subsurface constantly near the freezing (or the melting) point, can, like their associated snowfields, release large quantities of water during a given warm season. Their losses through evaporation are small.
Meltwater (outwash) contributions to streamflow, however, can range from well above half the total discharge to well below the level of the snow line. They are vital to irrigation on alluvial fans rimming many dry basins, as in the Central Valley of California and the Tarim Basin of the Takla Makan Desert of China: meltwater is released during the planting or growing seasons. Within the limiting constraints of precipitation or meltwater input or both, and the outputs of evapotranspiration and percolation, the actual distribution of rivers in nature is affected by available drainage area, lithology, and vegetation. Vegetation is obviously climate dependent to a large extent but might well be capable of reaching thresholds of detention ability that do not match recognized climatic boundaries. It is, moreover, liable to the influence of climatically independent factors where it has been disturbed by human activity. Runoff on the plain lands of northern Asia, expressed as a percentage of mean annual precipitation, ranges from about 75 in the tundra, through about 70 in the boreal forest and 50 through boreal forest with perennially frozen ground, down through less than 40 in mixed forest, to five in semidesert. Clear felling of forest increases runoff in the short and medium term because it reduces surface detention and transpiration. In areas of seasonal snow cover, forest influences seasonal regime considerably. However, though there may be a jump in short-term runoff characteristics between areas of continuous vegetation (forest and grass sward) on the one hand and discontinuous vegetation (bunchgrass and scrub) on the other, comprehensive general studies of precipitation–temperature runoff characteristics suggest that mean annual runoff decreases, at a decreasing rate through the range that is involved, as temperature increases and as precipitation (weighted in respect of seasonal incidence) decreases.
Lithology is significant mainly in connection with permeability. The capacity of karst to swallow and to reissue water is well known, as is the role of permeable strata generally in absorbing water into groundwater tables. An extreme case of a special kind is represented by an artesian aquifer, which in favourable structural conditions can take water for a very long time from the surface and immediately connected circulations, returning it only if the artesian pressure becomes strong enough to promote the opening of flowing springs. Less directly, but with considerable effect on infiltration and short-term runoff, the mechanical grade of bedrock or of surficial deposits can considerably affect the response to individual storms.
Both the ultimate possible extent of drainage basins and the opening of individual headwater channels are influenced by available drainage area. A hypothetical limit for very large basins could probably be constructed from considerations of stem length, basin shape, computed area, and continental extent. The Amazon probably approaches the hypothetical maximum. At the other extreme, basin morphometry (geometric aspects of basins and their measurement) can be made to indicate the limiting average area necessary to sustain a given length of channel; in large areas of the mid-latitudes, the ratio is close to 2.25 square kilometres of drainage area for a channel 1.6 kilometres in length. Estimates for the conterminous United States, an area of about 7,770,000 square kilometres, give some 5,230,000 kilometres of channel length. These estimates include 1,500,000 unbranched fingertip tributaries—each having an average length of 1.6 to 2.4 kilometres.
Drainage patterns
Distinctive patterns are acquired by stream networks in consequence of adjustment to geologic structure. In the early history of a network, and also when erosion is reactivated by earth movement or a fall in sea level, downcutting by trunk streams and extension of tributaries are most rapid on weak rocks, especially if these are impermeable, and along master joints and faults. Tributaries from those streams that cut and grow the fastest encroach on adjacent basins, eventually capturing parts of the competing networks therein. In this way, the principal valleys with their main drainage lines come to reflect the structural pattern.
Flat-lying sedimentary rocks devoid of faults and strong joints and the flat glacial deposits of the Pleistocene Epoch (from 2,500,000 to 10,000 years ago) exert no structural control at all: this is reflected in branching networks. A variant pattern, in which trunk streams run subparallel, can occur on tilted strata. Rectangular patterns form where drainage lines are adjusted to sets of faults and marked joints that intersect at about right angles, as in some parts of ancient crustal blocks. The pattern is varied where the regional angle of structural intersection changes. Radial drainage is typical of volcanic cones, so long as they remain more or less intact. Erosion to the skeletal state often leaves the plug standing in high relief, ringed by concentric valleys developed in thick layers of ash.
Similarly, on structural domes where the rocks of the core vary in strength, valleys and master streams locate on weak outcrops in annular patterns. Centripetal patterns are produced where drainage converges on a single outlet or sink, as in some craters, eroded structural domes with weak cores, parts of some limestone country, and enclosed desert depressions. Trellis (or espalier) drainage patterns result from adjustment to tight regional folding in which the folds plunge. Denudation produces a zigzag pattern of outcrops, and adjustment to this pattern produces a stream net in which the trunks are aligned on weak rocks exposed along fold axes and small feeder streams run down the sides of ridges cut on the stronger formations. Deranged patterns, in which channels are interrupted by lakes and swamps, characterize areas of modest relief from which continental ice has recently disappeared. These patterns may be developed either on the irregular surface of a till sheet (heterogeneous glacial deposit) or on the ice-scoured expanse of a planated crystalline block. Where a till sheet has been molded into drumlins (inverted-spoon-shaped forms that have been molded by moving ice), the postglacial drainage can approach a rectangular pattern. In glaciated highland, postglacial streams can pass anomalously through gaps if the divides have been breached by ice, and sheet glaciation of lowland country necessarily involves major derangement of river networks near the ice front. At the other climatic extreme, organized networks in dry climates can be deranged by desiccation, which breaks down the existing continuity of a net. The largely linear systems of ephemeral lakes in inland Western Australia have been referred to this process.
Adjustment to bedrock structure can be lost if earth movement raises folds or moves faults across drainage lines without actually diverting them; streams that maintain their courses across the new structures are called antecedent. Adjustment is lost on a regional scale when the drainage cuts down through an unconformity into an under-mass with structures differing greatly from those of the cover: the drainage then becomes superimposed. Where the cover is simple in structure and provides a regional slope for trunk drainage, remnants of the original pattern may persist long after superimposition and the total destruction of the cover, providing the means to reconstruct the earlier network.
Horton's (Horton, Robert E) laws of drainage composition
Great advances in the analysis of drainage nets were made by Robert E. Horton, an American hydraulic engineer who developed the fundamental concept of stream order: An unbranched headstream is designated as a first-order stream. Two unbranched headstreams unite to form a second-order stream; two second-order streams unite to form a third-order stream, and so on. Regardless of the entry of first- and second-order tributaries, a third-order stream will not pass into the fourth order until it is joined by another third-order confluent. Stream number is the total number of streams of a given order for a given drainage basin. The bifurcation ratio is the ratio of the number of streams in a given order to the number in the next higher order. By definition, the value of this ratio cannot fall below 2.0, but it can rise higher, since streams greater than first order can receive low-order tributaries without being promoted up the hierarchy. Some estimates for large continental extents give bifurcation ratios of 4.0 or more (see below Sediment yield and sediment load (river)).
Although the number system given here, and nowadays in common use, differs from Horton's original in the treatment of trunk streams, Horton's laws of drainage composition still hold, namely:
1. Law of stream numbers: the numbers of streams of different orders in a given drainage basin tend closely to approximate an inverse geometric series in which the first term is unity and the ratio is the bifurcation ratio.
2. Law of stream lengths: the average lengths of streams of each of the different orders in a drainage basin tend closely to approximate a direct geometric series in which the first term is the average length of streams of the first order.
These laws are readily illustrated by plots of number and average length (on logarithmic scales) against order (on an arithmetic scale). The plotted points lie on, or close to, straight lines. The orderly relationships thus indicated are independent of network pattern. They demonstrate exponential relationships. Horton also concluded that stream slopes, expressed as tangents, decrease exponentially with increase in stream order. The systematic relationships identified by Horton are independent of network pattern: they greatly facilitate comparative studies, such as those of the influences of lithology and climate. Horton's successors have extended analysis through a wide range of basin geometry, showing that stream width, mean discharge, and length of main stem can also be expressed as exponential functions of order, and drainage area and channel slope as power functions. Slope and discharge can in turn be expressed as power functions of width and drainage area, respectively. The exponential relationships expressed by network morphometry are particular examples of the working of fundamental growth laws. In this respect, they relate drainage-net analysis to network analysis and topology in general.
Morphometry of drainage networks
Relation of morphometric parameters and river flow
The functional relationships among various network characteristics, including the relationships between discharge on the one hand and drainage area, channel width, and length of main stem on the other, encourage the continued exploration of streamflow in relation to basin geometry. Attention has concentrated especially on peak flows, the forecasting of which is of practical importance; and since many basins are gaged either poorly or not at all, it would be advantageous to devise means of prediction that, while independent of gaging records, are yet accurate enough to be useful.
A general equation for discharge maxima states that peak discharges are (or tend to be) power functions of drainage area. Such a relationship holds good for maximum discharges of record, but conflicting results have been obtained by empirical studies of stream order, stream length, drainage density, basin size, basin shape, stream and basin slope, aspect, and relative and absolute height in relation to individual peak discharges in the shorter term. One reason is that not all these parameters have always been dealt with. In any event, peak discharge is also affected by channel characteristics, vegetation, land use, and lags induced by interception, detention, evaporation, infiltration, and storage. Although frequency–intensity–duration characteristics (and, in consequence, magnitude characteristics) of single storms have been determined for considerable land areas, the distribution of a given storm is unlikely to fit the location of a given drainage basin. In addition, the peak flow produced by a particular storm is much affected by antecedent conditions, seasonal and shorter term wetting and drying of the soil considerably influencing infiltration and overland flow. Nevertheless, one large study attained considerable success by considering rainfall intensity for a given duration and frequency, plus basin area, and main-channel slope expressed as the height–distance relationship of points 85 and 10 percent of stem length above the station for which predictions were made. For practical purposes, the telemetering of rainfall in a catchment, combined with the empirical determination of its response characteristics, appears effective in forecasting individual peak flows.
Evolution of drainage systems
To empirical analysis of the morphometry of drainage networks has been added theoretical inquiry. Network plan geometry is specifically a form of topological mathematics. Horton's two fundamental laws of drainage composition are instances of growth laws. They are witnessed in operation, especially when a new drainage network is developing; and, at the same time, probability statistics can be used to describe the array of events and forms produced.
Random-walk (random walk) plotting, which involves the use of random numbers to lay out paths from a starting point, can produce networks that respond to analysis as do natural stream networks—i.e., length and number increase and decrease respectively, in exponential relationship to order, and length can be expressed as a power function of area. The exponential relationship between number and order signifies a constant bifurcation ratio throughout the network. A greater constancy in this respect would be expected from a randomly predicted network than from a natural network containing adventitious streams that join trunks of higher than one additional order. The exponential relationship between length and order in a random network follows from the assumption that the total area considered is drained to, and by, channels; the power relationship of length to area then also follows. The implication of the random-walk prediction of networks that obey the empirically derived laws of drainage composition is that natural networks correspond to, or closely approximate, the most probable states.
Geometry of river systems
Hydraulic geometry
Hydraulic geometry deals with variation in channel characteristics in relation to variations in discharge. Two sets of variations take place: variations at a particular cross section (at-a-station) and variations along the length of the stream (downstream variations). Characteristics responsive to analysis by hydraulic geometry include width (water-surface width), depth (mean water depth), velocity (mean velocity through the cross section), sediment (usually concentration or transport, or both, of suspended sediment), downstream slope, and channel friction.
Graphs of the values of channel characteristics against values of discharge usually display some scatter or departure from lines of best fit. One main cause is that values on a rising flood often differ from those on a falling flood, partly because of the reduction of flow resistance, and hence the increase in velocity, as sediment-concentration increases on the rising flood. Bed scour and bed fill are also related. Nevertheless, the variations for a given cross section can be expressed as functions of discharge, Q. For instance, width, depth, and velocity are related to discharge by the expressions: w ∝ Qb, d ∝ Qf, and v ∝ Qm, where w, d, v and b, f, m are numerical constants. The sum of the exponents b + f + m = 1, because of the basic relation—namely that Q = wdv.
Similar functions can be derived for downstream variations, but, for downstream comparisons to be possible, the observed values of discharge and of channel characteristics must be referred to selected frequencies of discharge. When data are plotted on graphs with logarithmic scales for each of two discharge frequencies at an upstream and a downstream station, the four points for each channel characteristic define a parallelogram, whereby the hydraulic geometry of the stream is defined in respect of that characteristic. The values of exponents in the power equations differ considerably from one river to another: those shown here are theoretical optimum values. One common cause of difference is that many gaging stations are located where some channel characteristics are controlled, whether naturally as by rock outcrops or artificially as by bridge abutments. Constraints on variation in width, for instance, are mainly offset by increased variation in depth.
Analyses of downstream variation in channel slope with discharge commonly reveal contrasts between field results and the theoretical optima. The discrepancy is probably due in considerable part to the fact that channel slope can vary in concert with channel efficiency, including channel habit, channel size, and channel form. Many past discussions of stream slope are invalidated by their restriction to the two dimensions of height and distance. In any event, the slopes of many natural channels are influenced by some combination of earth movement, change in baselevel, glacial erosion, glacial deposition, and change of discharge and load characteristics that result from change of climate. Consequently, although natural profiles from stream source to stream mouth suggest a tendency toward a smooth concave-upward form, many actually are irregular. Even without a change of baselevel, degradational tendency, or discharge, a change in channel sinuosity can produce a significant change of channel slope.
A marked downstream lessening of slope does not imply a decrease in velocity at a given frequency of discharge; reduction of slope is accompanied, and offset, by an increase in channel efficiency due mainly to an increase in size. The lower Amazon (Amazon River), with a slope of less than 7.6 centimetres per 1.6 kilometres, flows faster at the bankfull stage than many mountain streams, at 2.4 metres per second. According to the assumptions made, an optimal velocity equation in hydraulic geometry can predict a slight increase, constancy, or a slight decrease in velocity downstream, for a given frequency of discharge. On the Mississippi, velocity at mean discharge (not a set frequency) increases downstream; velocity at the overbank stages of the five-year and 50-year floods is constant downstream. Constant downstream velocity may well be first attained at the bank-full stage. The fact that relationships are highly disturbed at and near waterfalls and other major breaks of slope (the Paraná just below the site of the former Guaíra Falls, for instance, ran at nine to 14 metres per second) has no bearing on the principles of hydraulic geometry, which apply essentially to streams in adjustable channels.
The interrelationships and adjustments among width, depth, width–depth ratio, suspended-sediment concentration, sediment transport, deposition, eddy viscosity, bed roughness, bank roughness, channel roughness, and channel slope in their relation to discharge, both at-a-station and in the downstream direction, plus the tendency at many sections on many streams for variation to occur about some modal value, all encourage the conception of rivers as equilibrium systems. The designation quasi-equilibrium systems is usually used, since not all variances can be simultaneously minimized, and minimization of some variances (e.g., of water-surface slope) can only be secured at the expense of maximizing others (e.g., channel depth).
River channel patterns
Distinctive patterns in the plan geometry of streams correspond to distinctive combinations of cross-sectional form, calibre of bed load, downstream slope, and in some cases cross-valley slope, tendency to cut or fill, or position within the system. The full range of pattern has not been identified: it includes straight, meandering, braided, reticulate, anabranching, distributary, and irregular patterns. Although individual patterns are given separate names, the total range constitutes a continuum.
Straight channels
Straight channels, mainly unstable, develop along the lines of faults and master joints, on steep slopes where rills closely follow the surface gradient, and in some delta outlets. Flume experiments show that straight channels of uniform cross section rapidly develop pool-and-riffle sequences. Pools are spaced at about five bed widths. Lateral shift of alternate pools toward alternate sides produces sinuous channels, and spacing of pools on each side of the channel is thus five to seven bed widths. This relation holds in natural meandering (meander) streams.
Meandering channels
Meandering channels are single channels that are sinuous in plan, but there is no criterion, except an arbitrary one, of the degree of sinuousity required before a channel is called meandering. The spacing of bends is controlled by flow resistance, which reaches a minimum when the radius of the bend is between two and three times the width of the bed. Accordingly, meander wavelength, the distance between two successive bends on the same side—or four-bend radii—tends to concentrate between eight and 12 bed widths, although variation both within and beyond this range seems to be related to variations in the cross-sectional form of the channel. Because bed width is related to discharge, meander wavelength also is related to discharge.
Meandering channels are equilibrium features that represent the most probable channel plan geometry, where single channels deviate from straightness. This deviation, and channel division in general, is related in part to the cohesiveness of channel banks and the abundance and bulk of midstream bars. When single channels are maintained, however, the meandering form is most efficient because it minimizes variance in water-surface slope, in angle of deflection of the current, and in the work done by the river in turning. This least-work property of meander bends is readily illustrated by the trace, identical with that of stream meanders, adopted by a bent band of spring steel. Meander plan geometry is simply describable by a sine function of the relative distance along the channel bend. The least-work and minimum-variance properties of the plan geometry, however, are secured only at the expense of maximizing the variance in depth. The longitudinal profile of the bed of a meandering stream includes pools at (or slightly downstream of) the extremities of bends and riffles at the inflections between bends. Increased tightness of bend, expressed by reduction in radius and increase in total angle of deflection, is accompanied by increased depth of pool. Where riffles are built of fragments larger than sand size, they behave as kinematic waves—i.e., the speed of transport of material through a given riffle decreases as the spacing of surface fragments decreases, and the total rate of transport attains a maximum where the spacing is about two particle lengths. Numerous sand-bed streams in dry regions, however, fail to develop pool-and-riffle sequences, maintaining approximately uniform cross sections even at channel bends.
Irregularities in meanders developed in alluvium relate primarily to uneven resistance, which is often a function of varying grain size. Variations in total sinuosity are probably due in the main to adjustments of channel slope. The process of cutoff (short-circuiting of individual meanders) is favoured not only by the erosion of outer channel banks and by the tendency of meander trains to sweep down the valley but also by the stacking of meanders upstream of obstacles and by increases of sinuosity that accompany slope reduction.
Meandering streams that cut deeply into bedrock form entrenched meanders, the terminology of which is highly confused. It seems probable that, in actuality, the sole existing type of entrenched meanders is the ingrown type, where undercut slopes (river cliffs) on the outsides of bends oppose slip-off slopes (meander lobes) on the insides. For reasons not yet understood, lateral enlargement of ingrown meanders seems habitually to outpace downstream sweep, although the trimming of the upstream sides of lobes, and occasional cutoff, are well known. Many existing trains of ingrown meanders belong to valleys rather than to streams, relating to the traces of former rivers of greater discharge. Reconstruction of the original traces indicates approximate straightness at plateau level, as opposed to the inheritance of the ingrown loops from some former high-level floodplain.
In a broader context, meander phenomena cannot be understood as requiring cohesive banks of the kind usual in rivers. Meanders, with geometry comparable to that of rivers, have been recognized in the oceanic Gulf Stream and in the jet streams of the upper atmosphere. In this way, stream meanders are classed with wave phenomena in general.
Braided channels
Braided channels are subdivided at low-water stages by multiple midstream bars of sand or gravel. At high water, many or all bars are submerged, although continuous downcutting or fixation by plants, or both, plus the trapping of sediment may enable some bars to remain above water. A single meandering channel may convert to braiding where one or more bars are constructed, as downstream of a tight bend where coarse material is brought up from the pool bottom. Each of the subdivided channels is less efficient, being smaller than the original single channel. If its inefficiency is compensated by an increase in slope (i.e., by downcutting), the bar dries out and becomes vegetated and stabilized. However, many rivers that are largely or wholly braided along their length owe their condition to something more than local accidents. The braided condition involves weak banks, a very high width–depth ratio, powerful shear on the streambed (implied by the width–depth ratio), and mobile bed material. Thus, braided streams are typically encountered near the edges of land ice, where valleys are being filled with incoherent coarse sediment, and also on outwash plains, as the Canterbury Plains of South Island, New Zealand; width–depth ratios can exceed 1,000:1. Studies on terraced outwash plains demonstrate that braided streams can readily excavate their valley floors—in other words, they are by no means solely an inevitable response to valley filling.
Distributary patterns, whether on alluvial fans or deltas, pose few problems. A delta pass that lengthens is liable to lateral breaching, whereas continued deposition, on deltas and on fans, raises the channel bed and promotes sideways spill down the least gradient. The branching rivers of inland eastern Australia, flowing across basin fills that range from thin sedimentary plains to thick fluvial accumulations, have affinities with deltaic distributaries even though their patterns are only radial in part. A branch may run for tens of kilometres before joining a trunk stream, whether its own or another.
Waterfalls (waterfall)
Waterfalls, sometimes called cataracts, arise from an abrupt steepening of a river channel that causes the flow of water to drop vertically, or nearly so. Waterfalls of small height and lesser steepness are called cascades; (cascade) the term is often applied to a series of small falls along a river. Still gentler reaches of rivers that nonetheless exhibit turbulent flow and white water in response to a local increase in channel gradient are rapids.
Waterfalls are characterized by great erosive power. The rapidity of erosion depends on the height of a given waterfall, its volume of flow, the type and structure of the rocks involved, and other factors. In some cases the site of the waterfall migrates upstream by headward erosion of the cliff or scarp, whereas in others erosion tends to act downward to bevel the entire reach of river containing the falls. With the passage of time, by either or both of these means, the inescapable tendency of streams is to eliminate so gross a discordance of longitudinal profile as a waterfall. The energy of all rivers is directed toward the achievement of a relatively smooth, concave-upward, longitudinal profile; this is a common equilibrium, or adjusted condition, in nature.
Even in the absence of entrained rock debris that serves as an erosive tool of rivers, it is intuitively obvious that the energy available for erosion at the base of a waterfall is great. Indeed, one of the characteristic features associated with waterfalls of any great magnitude—with respect to volume of flow as well as to height—is the presence of a plunge pool, a basin that is scoured out of the river channel directly beneath the falling water. In some instances the depth of a plunge pool may nearly equal the height of the cliff causing the falls. Its depth depends not only on the erosive power of the falls, however, but also on the amount of time during which the falls remain at a particular place. The channel of the Niagara River below Horseshoe Falls, for example, contains a series of plunge pools, each of which represents a stillstand, or period of temporary stability, during the general upriver migration of the waterfall. The significance of this profile will be discussed below, but in general it may be said that the fate of most waterfalls is their eventual transformation to rapids as a result of their own erosive energy.
The lack of permanence as a landscape feature is, in fact, the hallmark of all waterfalls. Many well-known occurrences such as the Niagara Falls came into existence as recently as 12,000 years ago, when the last of the great ice sheets retreated from middle latitudes. The oldest falls originated during the latter part of the Tertiary Period (65,000,000 to 2,500,000 years ago), when episodes of uplift raised the great plateaus and escarpments of Africa and South America. Examples of waterfalls attributable to such pre-Pleistocene uplift (that occurring more than 2,500,000 years ago) include Kalambo Falls, near Lake Tanganyika; Tugela Falls, in South Africa; Tisisat Falls, at the headwaters of the Blue Nile on the Ethiopian Plateau; and Angel Falls, in Venezuela.
Selected waterfalls of the worldAvailable data suggest that the falls of greatest height are seldom those of greatest water discharge. Many falls in excess of 300 metres exhibit but modest flow, and, in some cases, only a perpetual mist occurs near their bases. By way of contrast, the Khone Falls of the Mekong River in southern Laos, drop only 22 metres, but the average discharge of this cataract is about 11,330 cubic metres per second. In general, considering height and volume of flow jointly, it is understandable that Victoria (Victoria Falls), Niagara, and Paulo Afonso (Paulo Afonso Falls) (see photograph-->), among others, have each been proclaimed “the world's greatest falls” by various explorers and authorities (see Table 2 (Selected waterfalls of the world)).World distribution of waterfalls
The distribution of waterfalls is not uniform, and large parts of the world are free of any notable occurrence. This is not surprising in view of the relatively large proportion of the Earth's land area that consists of deserts and semiarid areas; these are understandably devoid of modern falls on climatic grounds. Ice-covered polar regions and relatively unbroken, low-lying plains and plateaus also are unfavourable sites of development.
Considered on a global basis, waterfalls tend to occur in three principal kinds of areas: (1) along the margins of high plateaus or the great fractures that dissect them; (2) along fall lines, which mark a zone between resistant crystalline rocks of continental interiors and weaker sedimentary formations of coastal regions; and (3) in high mountain areas, particularly those that were subjected to glaciation in the recent past.
High plateaus
Notable falls along high plateaus include the world's highest, Angel Falls of the Churún River, Venezuela, with a drop of 979 metres and overall relief of more than 1,100 metres; Tugela Falls, issuing from the Great Escarpment, South Africa, which is 948 metres in height; Victoria Falls (108 metres) on the Zimbabwe–Zambia border; and Kalambo Falls (427 metres) on the Tanzania–Zambia border. The volume of flow at Victoria Falls is relatively large, approximately 1,080 cubic metres per second, but Guaíra Falls, a series of falls that until their submergence by the waters of Itaipú Dam in 1982 totaled 114 metres along the Paraná River, Brazil–Paraguay, had the largest known average discharge—13,300 cubic metres per second. During flood stages, however, even this figure is exceeded at some falls along the Orange River and elsewhere. Angel Falls, Iguaçu Falls (82 metres; see photograph-->), in Brazil, and several others occur along the margins of high plateaus, east of the Andes, between Venezuela and Argentina.Fall lines (fall line)
Waterfalls that occur along fall lines are in some cases relatively indistinguishable from plateau examples—the Aughrabies Falls (Augrabies Falls) (146 metres), for instance, which occur where the Orange River leaves resistant crystalline rocks of the plateau in southern Africa. The typical fall-line example, however, occurs at the junction of the crystalline rocks of the Appalachian Mountains and the sedimentary coastal plain along the eastern United States. A number of major cities, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., are a geographic consequence of the existence of falls along this line or zone because they present barriers to further inland navigation. In England there is an analogous example with respect to the line of towns including Cambridge that borders the Fens. The most spectacular fall-line waterfalls, however, include Churchill (formerly Grand) Falls, Labrador, Canada (75 metres); Jog Falls (Gersoppa Falls), Karnātaka, India (253 metres); and Paulo Afonso Falls, Brazil (84 metres).
Glaciated mountains
The last category, mountainous and formerly glaciated regions, include such well-known waterfalls as Yosemite Falls, California (739 metres), with a three-section drop; Yellowstone Falls, Wyoming (94 metres), with a two-section drop; Sutherland Falls, South Island, New Zealand (580 metres); and Krimmler Waterfall, Austria (380 metres). Other falls of considerable height or volume of flow occur elsewhere in mountainous and formerly glaciated regions—namely, in the Alps, the Sierra Nevada and northern Rocky Mountains of North America, and South Island, New Zealand. The ice-free parts of Iceland and the fjord (drowned-valley) region of Norway also should be cited. Both areas contain numerous falls by reason of suitable topography and climate. Australia also has a few falls, notably the Wollomombi (Wollomombi Falls), in the Great Dividing Range, New South Wales (482 metres).
Types of waterfalls
The several types of waterfalls that occur in nature may be classified according to a variety of schemes. One of the simplest of these is based on principal region of occurrence—high plateaus, fall lines, and formerly glaciated mountains, as discussed above. More meaningful, however, is an alternate, threefold classification system that places more emphasis on the specific ways in which geologic and physiographic conditions produce and affect waterfalls. Thus, falls can be categorized as: (1) those attributable to natural discordance of river profiles, whether caused by faulting (vertical movements of the Earth's crust), glaciation, or other processes; (2) those attributable to differential erosion, which occurs whenever weak and resistant rocks are juxtaposed in some way; and (3) those attributable to constructional processes that create barriers and dams, over which water must fall. These three basic types will be discussed in turn.
Falls attributable to discordance of river profile
In one sense, all falls must be attributable to a discordance of river profile by their very definition. This category is here arbitrarily restricted, however, to exclude profile breaks that are caused by differential erosion and constructional processes. Remaining are waterfalls along fault scarps, uplifted plateaus and cliffs, glacial features of several kinds, karst topography—the caves and cave systems produced by solution of carbonate rocks—and falls that result from the issuance of springs from canyon walls high above valley floors.
The enormous rigid plates that make up the outer shell of the Earth continually move relative to one another, resulting in seafloor spreading, continental drift, and mountain building (see plate tectonics: Plate tectonics and mountain building (plate tectonics)). These large-scale motions cause a buildup of strain within the rocks of the crust at some depth below the surface. Ultimately, the rocks must yield or shift in order to release this strain, and, when they suddenly do so, an earthquake results. Commonly, there will be some visible evidence of this sudden release at the Earth's surface, perhaps manifested by the creation of a cliff or series of cliffs along a line or zone. The sloping surfaces that form the cliff fronts are called fault scarps. The vertical movements that produce fault scarps seldom amount to more than about three metres during an individual earthquake. Repeated faulting along the same line or zone, however, can produce scarps that are thousands of metres in height in relatively brief periods of geologic time. Waterfalls occur where the faults cross established drainage systems. The ultimate height of such falls depends not only on the total height of uplift but also on the rate of downcutting by the affected rivers. Rates of uplift tend to exceed rates of downcutting considerably in those parts of the world where uplift is ongoing today. Hence, it is normal for high waterfalls to exist due to uplift in many areas. In addition, some plateaus are produced by broader, regional uplifts that are relatively continuous and are not associated with earthquakes. The heights attained are nevertheless comparable after suitable time intervals. Major rift (fracture) systems of continental or subcontinental scale, some sea cliffs, and other features of this nature also are attributable to some form of faulting. All of them provide suitable sites for waterfall development.
The processes of glaciation have served this same end. Mountain ranges that formerly were glaciated contain falls at the outlets of cirques (cirque), bowl-shaped depressions in the headwaters of drainage areas that were formed by the accumulation of ice and its erosive action on the underlying bedrock. In addition, waterfalls are most common where hanging valleys occur. Such valleys generally form when glacier ice deeply erodes a main or trunk valley, leaving tributary valleys literally hanging far above the main valley floor. After the glaciers have melted and withdrawn, streams from such tributary valleys must fall in order to join the main valley drainage system below. Hanging valleys also can occur in response to faulting and in some other non-glacial situations: the chalk cliffs of England, for example, where small streams cannot cut downward with sufficient rapidity to keep pace with backwearing of the cliffs by marine erosion.
Other features that may result from glaciation include glacial potholes and glacial steps. The former are thought to originate principally as a result of the plastic flow of ice at the base of a glacier; this permits the gouging of semicylindrical holes in the bedrock beneath the path of flow. The holes or depressions are subsequently enlarged and deepened by meltwater runoff that is heavily laden with gravels, and they have become the sites of modern cascades in many instances.
The steps (or glacial stairway, as this feature is sometimes called) consist of treads and risers on a relatively giant scale that have been produced by the passage of ice over bedrock, particularly when alternating rock properties or joints offer differential resistance to the flow of ice. Again, the establishment of runoff after wastage of the ice has occurred will lead to a series of waterfalls or cascades at the site of each riser in the stairway.
Most spectacular among glacial features, however, are the overdeepened valleys along formerly glaciated coasts, as in Norway. These fjords (fjord) are intimately associated with falls because the valley walls typically are both high and steep and because hanging valleys are ubiquitous.
Like the potholes mentioned above, the solution of limestones and other carbonate rocks leads to the formation of pits, sinks, caves, and interconnected systems of caverns, which together are termed karst topography. Terrain of this kind commonly contains water in many of the included passages in the form of standing pools, streams, and, where discontinuities of cavern levels occur, waterfalls. There are a few parts of the world where karst topography and its associated drainage are prominent features of the landscape, but, on the whole, falls attributable to cave-forming processes are not numerous (see cave and karst landscape (coastal landforms)). Springs that issue from canyon walls high above main valley floors are in the same category. Most of these artesian (free-flowing) systems result from the same type of solution phenomenon along joints and fractures that produce caves in carbonate rocks (rock).
Falls attributable to differential erosion
Rocks differ markedly with regard to their resistance to erosion by running water. Although no quantitative scales to express this difference have been developed, widespread agreement exists on certain generalities. Metamorphic rocks (those that are formed from preexisting rocks under the action of high temperatures and pressures), for example, are commonly more durable than are sedimentary rocks, and great differences can exist even among the latter because of a significant amount of variation in the degree of cementation and kinds of rock structure present in them. Thus, a quartz-rich sandstone whose constituent grains are cemented by silica tends to be much more resistant than a fissile shale, the clay-rich layers of which tend to split and separate. And the blocky character of some carbonate rocks (limestones and dolomites) and extrusive igneous rocks (formed by the cooling of lava flows) tends to enhance their resistance to fluvial erosion, notwithstanding their relatively low resistance to solution.
Regardless of the intrinsic toughness of any rock type, however, lengthy periods of weathering or the presence of intricate fracture patterns will render it easily erodible. There are, in fact, a veritable legion of factors that influence rock resistance to erosion, and it is for this reason that generalities must be invoked. Suffice it to say that some rocks are weak whereas others are strong and that waterfalls are promoted where these occur in certain geologic arrangements.
There are three such arrangements that are common in nature: (1) horizontal or nearly horizontal strata in which rocks of greater resistance overlie weaker rocks, forming a protective cap rock; (2) inclined strata involving beds or layers of alternating resistance; and (3) various kinds of non-sedimentary rock arrangements in which dikes or veins of hard crystalline rocks are juxtaposed with weaker rocks. In each of these cases the weaker rocks are eroded more readily and more rapidly by running water, and the harder, resistant rocks, as a consequence, stand higher and are “falls makers.” In the special case of the cap-rock arrangement, waterfalls migrate upriver because the protective upper layers break off as the weaker supporting strata are eroded from beneath. Niagara Falls is the most notable example involving sedimentary rocks (a blocky dolomite cap overlies a series of less-resistant shales and sandstones); more commonly, a lava flow caps erodible strata.
Falls attributable to constructional processes
There are four principal constructional processes that can lead to the creation of dams or barriers and, hence, to the formation of waterfalls. These processes are (1) precipitation of calcium carbonate from solution; (2) disruption of drainage by lava flows or the deposition of volcanic ash and other pyroclastic sediments; (3) ice damming and the construction of moraines, or ridgelike sedimentary deposits left at the sites of former glaciers; and (4) the deposition of landslide and avalanche debris.
The first of these, carbonate precipitation, can accumulate to considerable dimensions as spring deposits of travertine or calcareous tufa, often in a series of terraces. Where these ultimately block avenues of normal runoff, waterfalls result. The water in limestone caves also is rich in calcium carbonate, and where ponds occur in the path of small subterranean streams there is preferential precipitation at the spillage rims. The barriers that are raised are self-perpetuating, can attain heights of about 15 metres under certain circumstances, and have been called rimstone dams and falls.
Volcanic activity, principally in the form of basaltic lava flows, is related to waterfall development in many parts of the world. The flows compose the bulk of such great plateau areas as the Columbia River region of the United States and the Deccan Plateau in India and often serve as cap rock. The association of falls with plateaus in general and with cap-rock arrangements was noted previously, but, in addition, some falls result from drainage diversion and the ponding of streams and rivers by lava dams. This has occurred in some parts of New Zealand, Iceland, and Hawaii and, in general, in regions where volcanic activity is a prominent aspect of the landscape.
Ice dams can produce similar effects. One of the most interesting examples is Dry Falls, a “fossil waterfall” in the Columbia River Plateau, Washington, which formed in late Pleistocene time. A large ice sheet blocked and diverted the then-westward-flowing Columbia River and formed a vast glacial lake. The lake drained to the south when permitted to do so by periodically occurring ice dams, and torrents of water were released during these breakouts. The water flowed through the Grand Coulee channel and eroded a canyon nearly 300 metres deep. Dry Falls occurs along this flow path; it is about 120 metres high and five kilometres wide. The Columbia River has reestablished its path to the sea since the disappearance of the ice sheet, and so the falls are dry today.
The magnitudes of flow that must have occurred during the Pleistocene, however, can be appreciated from data on some of the great glacier outburst floods (jøkulhlaups) of modern history. The breaching of an ice dam at Grímsvötn, Ice., in 1922, for example, released about 7.1 cubic kilometres of water, and the discharge attained a value of 57,000 cubic metres per second.
There are other depositional features that may pond and dam streams, notably glacial moraines—which attain heights as great as 250 metres in the formerly glaciated valleys of the Alps—and landslides, avalanches, and other downslope movements of earth materials into valleys. The associated falls tend to be rather ephemeral, however, because all such unconsolidated material is cut through relatively swiftly, and smooth stream gradients are reestablished. The damming action of lava flows and glacier ice is far more important in nature; the lava flows consist of more durable material, and ice damming leads to outburst floods and great attendant erosion.
Development of waterfalls
With the passage of time a particular waterfall must either migrate upstream, as in the case of a cap-rock falls, or serve as the locus for general downcutting along the reach of river containing the falls. In either case, the process depends on the height of the falls, the volume of flow, and the nature and arrangement of the rocks involved. Any discussion of waterfall development requires knowledge of these three factors and, more importantly, knowledge of the former locations and configurations of any particular waterfall under consideration. If the changes of location through time are lacking, then rates of waterfall recession are basically indeterminate.
The available data on the recession of the Horseshoe Falls of the Niagara River are little short of astonishing in comparison to the general paucity of such information elsewhere. Instrumental surveys of the configuration and position of Horseshoe Falls were made in 1842, 1875, 1886, 1890, 1905, 1927, and 1950. Still earlier delineations of position were provided by visual observations as long ago as 1678. For this reason, general waterfall development must be considered in terms of the Horseshoe Falls example. It should be noted, however, that the recession rates pertaining to this cap-rock-type falls are not necessarily average rates for all falls of this kind; they certainly do not apply to non-cap-rock falls in crystalline rocks, for example, where much slower rates generally prevail.
The average rate of recession of any falls can be determined from knowledge of the total upstream distance of migration and the time period during which the migration occurred. In the case of Horseshoe Falls, the total distance involved is about 12 kilometres, and retreat of the falls has been accomplished in approximately 12,500 years, since the disappearance of the most recent ice sheet from the area. The average rate of recession is therefore about one metre per year. The several instrumental surveys, however, suggest that a rate of 1.2 metres per year occurred during the 1842–75 period and two metres per year during the 1875–1905 period.
By way of comparison, the average recession rate for the American Falls, which occur downstream and to one side of Horseshoe Falls because of branching by the Niagara River, is only 0.08 metre per year. And, in a comparable vein, upstream migration of the Gullfoss (Gull Falls) in Iceland during the last 10,000 years is estimated to have occurred at an average recession rate of 0.25 metre per year. This is, again, a far slower rate of falls recession than has occurred at Horseshoe Falls.
To some extent the various recession rates are related to differential resistance of the rocks to erosion. Indeed, the discrepancy between the 1842–75 and 1875–1905 rates for Horseshoe Falls have been attributed in the past not only to possible surveying errors but also to the relative abundance of joints (fractures) in different parts of the dolomite cap rock. One study of Horseshoe Falls suggests, however, that another factor is of still greater importance—namely, the configuration of the crest of the falls and the relative stability of differing kinds of configurations.
Streamflow and sediment yield
Peak discharge and flooding
Rapid variations of water-surface level in river channels through time, in combination with the occurrence from time to time of overbank flow in flat-bottomed valleys, have promoted intensive study of the discharge relationships and the probability characteristics of peak flow. Stage (depth or height of flow) measurements treat water level: discharge measurements require determinations of velocity through the cross section. Although records of stage respond to frequency analysis, the analysis of magnitude and frequency is preferable wherever stage is affected by progressive scour or fill, and also where channels have been artificially embanked or enlarged or both. The velocity determinations needed to calculate discharge range from those obtained with portable Venturi flumes (venturi tube) on very small streams, through observations with gaging staff or fixed Venturi flumes on streams of modest size, to soundings with current meters at intervals of width and depth at cross sections of large rivers. Frequent velocity observations on large rivers are impracticable. It is standard practice to establish a rating formula, expressed graphically by a rating curve. Such a curve relates height of water surface to the area of and velocity through the cross section and thus to discharge. Secular changes in rating occur where a stream tends progressively to raise or lower its bed elevation. Short-term changes are common where the bed is mobile and especially where the bed elevation–discharge relation, and thus the stage–discharge relation, differs between the rising and the falling limb of a single peak discharge curve. In such cases the rating curve describes a hysteresis loop. Rating curves for sand-bed streams can include discontinuities, chiefly during rising discharge, that relate to behavioral jumps on the part of the bed.
Floods (flood) in hydrology are any peak discharges, regardless of whether or not the valley floor (if present) is inundated. The time–discharge or time–stage characteristics of a given flood peak are graphed in the hydrograph, which tends to assume a set form for a given station in response to a given input of water. The peak flow produced by a single storm is superimposed on the base flow, the water already in the channel and being supplied from the groundwater reservoir. Rise to peak discharge is relatively swift and is absolutely swift in small basins and on torrents where the duration of the momentary peak is also short. On very large streams, by contrast, peak discharge can be sustained for lengths of days. Recession from peak discharge is usually exponential. The form of the hydrograph for any one station is affected by characteristics of the channel and the drainage net, as well as by basin geometry, all of which can be taken as permanent in this context.
As noted above, flood-flow prediction that is based on permanent characteristics has hitherto achieved but partial success. Transient influences, also highly and at times overwhelmingly important, include the storage capacity of bedrock and soil, the interrelationships of infiltration, evaporation, and interception and detention (especially by vegetation), plus storm characteristics, which vary widely with respect to amount, duration, intensity, and location of rainfall with respect to the catchment.
In the longer term, flood-frequency analysis based on recorded past events can nevertheless supply useful predictions of future probabilities and risks. Flood-frequency analysis deals with the incidence of peak discharges, whereas frequency analysis generally provides the statistical basis of hydraulic geometry. Percentage frequency analysis has been much used in engineering: here, the 1 percent and 90 percent discharges, for instance, are those that are equalled or exceeded 1 and 90 percent of time, respectively. General observations of the flashy character of floods in headwater streams, in contrast to the long durations of flood waves far downstream, combine with analytical studies to suggest, however, that percentage frequency is in some respects an unsuitable measure. Magnitude–frequency analysis, setting discharge against time, is directly applicable in studies of hydraulic geometry and flood-probability forecasting.
Regional graphs of magnitude–frequency can be developed, given adequate records, for floods of any desired frequency or magnitude. Predictions for great magnitudes and low frequencies, however, demand records longer than those usually available. Twelve years of record are needed to define the mean annual flood within 25 percent, with an expectation of correct results for 95 percent of time; and in general, a record should be at least twice as long as the greatest recurrence interval for which magnitude is desired.
Predictions of overbank flow, whether or not affected by artificial works, are relevant to floodplain risk and floodplain management. Notably in the conterminous United States, floodplain zoning is causing risks to be reduced by the withdrawal of installations from the most flood-liable portions of floodplains or risks to be totally accepted by occupiers.
In the long geomorphic term the transmission of sediment through floodplain storage systems and through stream channels seems to result mainly from the operation of processes of modest magnitude and high frequency. Specifically, analyses suggest that total sediment transport by rivers is normally affected by flows approximating bank-full over durations ranging down from 25 to 1 percent of total time. Infrequent discharges of great magnitude, which can be expected on grounds of the probabilities of precipitation, snowmelt, and streamflow, range widely in destructive effect. Severe flooding is normally accompanied by great loss of life and property damage, the mean annual floods along the Huang Ho themselves affecting some 29,800 square kilometres of floodplain, but geomorphic effects may be minimal, even with very large floods. The approximately 100-year floods of eastern England in the spring of 1947, fed by unusually great and deferred snowmelt, scarcely affected either channels or floodplains. The 1955 floods in Connecticut, fed by rains amounting to 58 centimetres in places, produced only spotty effects of erosion and deposition, even where floodplains were inundated to a depth of six metres. For a given valley, there could be a threshold of inundation, river velocity, and sediment load, beyond which drastic changes occur. This is suggested, for example, by the catastrophic alluviation of valleys in eastern Australia and New Zealand during the last 4,000 or 2,000 years.
Sudden catastrophes in historical and geomorphic records are related to special events, mainly nonrecurrent: the 1841 Indus flood, which destroyed an army; the Gohna Lake flood of 1894 on the Ganges; and the 1925 Gros Ventre flood in Wyoming, accompanied the breaching of natural landslide barriers. The Lake Issyk-Kul (Ysyk, Lake) (Kyrgyzstan) flood of 1963, which caused widespread erosion and deposition, followed the overtopping of a landslide barrier by waves produced by a mudflow. The Vaiont Dam (Italy), although itself holding, was overtopped in 1963 by 91-metre-high waves raised by a landslide: the floods downstream took more than 2,500 lives in 15 minutes. On the Huang Ho the floods of 1887 took an estimated 900,000 lives. In late Pleistocene time the overtopping of an erodible natural dam by the then-existing Lake Bonneville (Bonneville, Lake) eventually released nearly 1,666 cubic kilometres of water; the maximum discharge of about 280,000 cubic metres per second is comparable to the flow of the Amazon, but velocities were very high, perhaps ranging to 7.6 metres per second. The greatest flood peak so far identified is that of the ice-dammed Lake Missoula in Montana, which, on release, discharged 2,085 cubic kilometres of water at an estimated peak flow of 8,500,000 cubic metres per second. Iceland is notable for glacier bursts, which are nonrecurrent where they result from subglacial eruptions but recurrent where they involve the sudden failure of ice dams, as with Grímsvötn, which periodically releases 8.3 or more cubic kilometres of water in floods that peak at 57,000 cubic metres per second. Deposition by glacier-burst floods is illustrated by Iceland's Sandur plains.
Peak discharges that close the range between natural floods of great magnitude and low frequency on noncatastrophic streams and natural catastrophic floods of great magnitude and perceptible frequency include stormwater discharges from expanding urban areas. Because of the progressive spread of impermeable catchment and efficient runoff systems, such floods tend to increase both in frequency and in magnitude.
Sediment yield and sediment load
All of the water that reaches a stream and its tributaries carries sediment eroded from the entire area drained by it. The total amount of erosional debris exported from such a drainage basin is its sediment yield. Sediment yield is generally expressed in two ways: either as a volume or as a weight—i.e., as acre-feet (one-foot depth of material over one acre) or as tons. In order to adjust for the very different sizes of drainage basins, the yield frequently is expressed as a volume or weight per unit area of drainage basin—e.g., as acre-feet per square mile or as tons per square mile or per square kilometre. The conversion between the two forms of expression is made by obtaining an average weight for the sediment and calculating the total weight from the measured volume of sediment. Further, sediment yield is usually measured during a period of years, and the results are thus expressed as an annual average.
The sediment delivered to and transported by a stream is its sediment load. This can be classified into three types, depending on sediment size and the competence of the river. The coarsest sediment, consisting of boulders and cobbles as well as sand, moves on or near the bed of the stream and is the bed load of the river. The finer particles, silts and clays, are carried in suspension by the turbulent action of flowing water; and these fine particles, which are moved long distances at the velocity of the flowing water, constitute the suspended load of the river. The remaining component of the total sediment load is the dissolved load, which is composed of chemical compounds taken into solution by the water moving on or in the soils of the drainage basin. These three types of sediment constitute the total sediment load of the stream and, of course, the sediment yield of the drainage basin.
Measurement of the load
The sediment load can be measured in different ways. Collection of water samples from a river and measurement of the sediment contained in each unit of water will, when sufficient samples have been taken and the water discharge from the system is known, permit calculation of annual sediment yield. Because sediment in a stream channel is transported in suspension, in solution, and as material rolling or moving very near the bed, the water samples will contain suspended and dissolved load and perhaps some bed load. Much of the bed load, however, cannot be sampled by existing techniques, as it moves too near the bed of a stream. It is fortunate, therefore, that the greatest part of the total sediment load is in the form of suspended load.
When a dam is constructed, the sediment transported by a stream is deposited in the still waters of the reservoir. In this case, both bed load and suspended load are deposited, but the dissolved load eventually moves out with the water released from the reservoir. Frequent, precise surveys of the configuration of the reservoir provide data on the volume of sediment that accumulates in the reservoir. Water samples can be taken to provide data on the dissolved load transported into the reservoir; and when this quantity is added to the measurements of suspended and bed load, a reasonably accurate measure of sediment yield from the drainage basin above the reservoir can be obtained.
In areas where information on sediment yield is required but the necessary samples have not been taken (perhaps because of the infrequent occurrence of flow in ephemeral streams), estimates of sediment yields may be obtained from measurements of hillslope and channel erosion within the basin or by the evaluation of erosion conditions. Certain characteristics of the drainage basin, such as the average slope of the basin or the number and spacing of drainage channels, may be used to provide an estimate of sediment yield (see below).
All of the techniques utilized to measure sediment yield are subject to considerable error, but data sufficiently accurate for the design of water-regulatory structures can be obtained by sampling or by reconnaissance surveys of the drainage systems.
Sources of sediment and nature of deposition
Erosion in drainage basins
The ultimate source of the sediment that is measured as sediment yield is the rock underlying the drainage basins. Until the rock is broken or weathered into fragments of a size that can be transported from the basin, the sediment yield will be low. The diverse mechanisms, both chemical and physical, that produce sediment and soil from rock are termed weathering processes. Depending on type of rock and type of weathering process, the result may be readily transported silts, clays, and sands or less easily transported cobbles and boulders.
Most rocks have been fractured during the vicissitudes of geologic history, thereby permitting penetration of water and roots. Wedging by ice and growing roots produces blocks of rock that are then subject to further disintegration and decomposition by chemical and physical agencies. These rocks, if exposed on a hillslope, move slowly down the slope to the stream channel—the rate of movement depending on slope inclination; density of vegetation; frequency of freeze and thaw events; and the size, shape, and density of the materials involved. In addition, water moving through rocks and soil can dissolve soluble portions of rock or weathering products. This is especially important in limestone regions and in regions of warm, humid climate, where chemical decomposition of rocks is rapid and where the dissolved load of streams is at a maximum.
When sediment eroded from the hillslopes is not delivered directly to a channel, it may accumulate at the base of the slope to form a colluvial deposit. The sediment derived directly from the hillslope may be stored temporarily at the slope base; therefore, sediment once set in motion does not necessarily move directly through the stream system. It is more likely, in fact, that a given particle of sediment will be stored as colluvium before moving into the stream. Even then, it may be stored as alluvium in the floodplain, bed, or bank of the stream for some time before eventually moving out of the drainage system. Thus there is a steady export of sediment from a drainage basin, but an individual grain of sediment may be deposited and eroded many times before it leaves the system.
The preceding suggests that, over a period of time, the total erosion within a drainage basin is greater than the sediment yield of the system. Proof of this statement is the fact that the quantity of sediment per unit area that leaves a drainage system decreases as the size of the drainage basin increases. This is partly explained by the decrease in stream gradient and basin relief in a downstream direction. That is to say, much sediment is produced in the steeper areas near drainage divides, and sediment production decreases downstream. Moreover, the increasing width of valleys and floodplains downstream and the decreasing gradient of the streams provide an increasing number of opportunities for sediment to be deposited and temporarily stored within the system.
Each of the components of the drainage system—hill-slopes and channels—produces sediment. The quantity provided by each, however, will vary during the erosional development of the basin and during changes of the vegetational, climatic, and hydrologic character of the drainage system. Most rivers flow on the upper surface of an alluvial deposit, and considerable sediment is thus stored in most river valleys. During great floods or when floodplain vegetation does not stabilize this sediment, large quantities may be flushed from the system as the channel widens and deepens. At these times, the sediment produced by stream-channel erosion is far greater than that produced by the hillslopes, and sediment yields will be far in excess of rates of hillslope erosion. Such cycles of rapid channel erosion or gullying and subsequent healing and deposition are common in arid and semiarid regions.
Environments of deposition
It is clear that a great range of sediment sizes may be transported by a river. Sediment of small size (e.g., suspended load), when set in motion by erosive agents, may be transported through a river system to the sea, where it may be deposited as a deep-sea clay. Most sedimentary particles, however, have a more eventful journey to their final resting place. (In a geologic context, this may be a temporary resting place; sediment, for example, when it reaches the coast, may be incorporated in a delta at the river mouth or be acted upon by tides, currents, and waves to become a beach deposit.)
If sediment is moved downstream into a progressively more arid environment, the probability of deposition is high. Thousands of metres of alluvial-fan deposits flank the mountains of the western United States, the basin-and-range terrain of Iran and Pakistan, and similar desert regions (see below). In the arid climates (climate) of these areas the sediment cannot be moved far, because the transporting medium—water—diminishes in a downstream direction as it infiltrates into the dry alluvium. In extremely arid regions, wind action may be important: the transport of sand-size and smaller sediment by wind may be the only significant mechanism for the transport within and out of some drainage systems in deserts.
The impact of human activity on river flow has come to play a major role in determining the site of sediment deposition. The many dams that have been constructed for flood control, recreation, and power generation hold much of the sediment load of rivers in reservoirs. Furthermore, the contribution of sediment from the small upstream drainage systems has been decreased by the construction of stock-water reservoirs and various erosion-control techniques aimed at retaining both water and sediment in the headwater areas. Diversion of water for irrigation also decreases the supply of water available to transport sediment; and in many cases, the diversion actually moves sediment out of the streams into irrigation canals and back onto the land.
Factors that influence sediment yield
Of greatest concern to the human community are the factors that cause rapid rates of erosion and high sediment yields. The quantity and type of sediment moving through a stream channel are intimately related to the geology, topographic character, climate, vegetational type and density, and land use within the drainage basin. The geologic and topographic variables are fixed, but short-term changes in climatic conditions, vegetation, and land use produce abrupt alterations in the intensity of erosion processes and in sediment yields.
The sediment yield from any drainage system is calculated by averaging the data collected over a period of years. It is, therefore, an average of the results of many different hydrologic events. The sediment yield for each storm or flood will vary, depending on the meteorologic character of the storm event and the resulting hydrologic character of the floods. High-intensity storms may produce sediment yields well above the norm, whereas an equal amount of precipitation occurring over a longer period of time may yield relatively little sediment. During short spans of time (days or years), sediment yields may fluctuate greatly because of natural or man-induced accidents (e.g., floods and fires), but over longer periods of time, the average sediment yield will be typical of the geologic and climatic character of a region.
Short-term variations
An example of a short-term change in sediment yield is provided by data on the sediment transported by the Colorado River in Arizona for the years 1926–54. It is evident that sediment yield varied widely from year to year. It is greatest for years of highest runoff, but for a given amount of runoff, the maximum sediment yield may be twice the minimum sediment yield. These variations reflect the frequency of storms and their duration and intensity during the years of record.
Another interesting aspect of the relation is that in each of the years after 1940 the annual sediment load at the Grand Canyon was 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 tons less than would be expected on the basis of the curve fitted to the data for the period 1926–40. This major decrease in sediment yield reflects some significant change in the hydrology of the Colorado River drainage basin. A study of the precipitation patterns for the years 1926–54 suggests that the change in the sediment yield– runoff relation beginning in 1941 is the result of a drought in the southwestern United States. The high-sediment-producing, weak-rock areas of the Colorado plateaus were affected by the drought, but the low-sediment-producing, hard-rock areas of the Rocky Mountains were not. Thus, during the years 1941–50 the amount of water delivered from the main runoff-producing areas in Colorado, Wyoming, and northern Utah was normal. Runoff was much reduced from the high-sediment-producing areas in southern Utah and Arizona, however. The result was essentially normal runoff but greatly reduced sediment yield. From 1950 the drought encompassed the entire Colorado River Basin, and low runoff was recorded for the years 1950, 1951, 1953, and 1954; yet, the proportion of runoff produced by the high-sediment-producing areas remained low, as did the sediment yield.
It can be expected that sediment-yield rates will fluctuate with climatic variations. It is possible, therefore, that an average value of sediment yield obtained for a short period of record may not provide a valid measure of the characteristic sediment yield that would be expected over a longer period of years.
A further example of short-term variation of sediment yield, in this case the result of human activity on the landscape, is provided by data illustrating the change from natural conditions to conditions produced by upland farming (agricultural technology) and from farming conditions to urban conditions in the Piedmont region of the eastern United States. Sediment yields for forested regions normally are about 37 tons per square kilometre (100 tons per square mile), and this was the case during the early part of the 19th century in this region. A significant increase in sediment yield occurred after 1820 as the land was occupied and farmed. During the period of intense farming, 1850–1930, the sediment yield reached almost 310 tons per square kilometre, but a decrease occurred between 1930 and 1960, as much land was permitted to revert to forest or grazing land. With the onset of construction and real estate development, however, vegetation was destroyed, and large quantities of sediment were eroded. The sediment yields for some small areas reached about 770 tons per square kilometre during urbanization, but with the paving of streets, completion of sewage systems, and planting of lawns, the sediment yields decreased markedly. This example demonstrates very clearly both the long-term and short-term effects of human activity on sediment yield rates.
In any drainage basin, even one not affected unduly by human action, short periods of high sediment yield will alternate with periods of little export of sediment. Prime examples are small drainage basins in arid or semiarid regions, where sediment yield occurs only during and following precipitation. Runoff and sediment yield can be zero between storms but high during and immediately following precipitation.
Even temperature variations have been demonstrated to influence sediment transport and sediment yields. Cooler water is more viscous, and this decreases the fall velocity of sediment particles and enables the stream to transport a larger amount of sediment. Thus, the sediment load of the Colorado River is greater during winter months.
The disastrous effect of fire on sediment yields may be seen in the example of the conditions that followed a major storm and flood in the steep drainage basins of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains of California in 1938. Maximum vegetational cover on these drainage basins is only 65 percent at best, and they are notoriously high sediment producers under the most favourable conditions. Sediment-yield rates were established for several drainage basins that had been subjected to fires as recently as one year before the storm and as long as 15 years before the storm. The results shown further demonstrate the great effect of vegetational disturbance on sediment yields; for example, a drainage area with only 40 percent of the area burned had a 340 percent increase in sediment yield if the fire occurred one year before the storm. According to the information provided, the burned area one year after the fire had a 10 percent vegetational cover. Obviously, a storm immediately following the fire would have had even more disastrous consequences. Three years after the burn, a 35 percent vegetation cover had been established on the burned area, and sediment yields decreased markedly to only twice the yield preceding the fire. After seven years a 45 percent cover had been established on the burned area, and sediment yields were only 50 percent greater than pre-burn values. After 15 years a 55 percent vegetal cover had been established, and sediment yields were almost normal. The decrease in sediment yield with increased plant cover is apparent. It is also obvious that an average value of sediment yield from a burned drainage basin for a 15-year period would be meaningless; with progressive reestablishment of vegetation, sediment-yield rates progressively decrease with time.
Long-term or average sediment yield
It has been estimated that modern sediment loads of the rivers draining to the Atlantic Ocean may be four to five times greater than the prehistoric rates because of the effects of human activity. Even where human impact is large, however, it is possible to recognize several other independent variables that exert a major influence on long-term sediment yield. These variables can be grouped into three main classes: geologic, geomorphic, and climatic-vegetational.
The major geologic influence on sediment yield is through lithology, or the composition and physical properties of rocks and their resistance to weathering and erosion. An easily weathered and eroded shale, siltstone, or poorly cemented sandstone will provide relatively large quantities of sediment, whereas a lava flow, a well-cemented sandstone, or metamorphic and igneous rocks produce negligible quantities of transportable sediment. The highest known sediment yields that have been recorded are produced by the erosion of unconsolidated silts ( loess). Loess is readily eroded, especially when the protecting vegetational cover is disturbed, as has happened in the high-sediment-producing areas of western Iowa in the United States and the Huang Ho Basin in China.
In general, sediment yield from drainage systems underlain by granitic rocks is from one-fourth to one-half that of drainage basins underlain by sedimentary rocks. There are exceptions. limestone, which may be a massive rock, is highly resistant to erosion in arid regions, where mechanical or physical weathering is dominant. It is, however, highly susceptible to chemical weathering, especially solution, in humid regions. Most of the earth material removed from a limestone terrain will be transported as dissolved load, with some suspended load derived from erosion of the residual soil.
Another factor of importance in determining erosion rates is the permeability of earth materials. When soils are permeable, much of the water delivered to the surface infiltrates and does not produce surface runoff, thereby inhibiting surface erosion. This condition is characteristic of very sandy soils. On the other hand, when soil materials are of low permeability (e.g., clayey soils), a greater part of the precipitation runs off on the surface, thereby causing greater erosion and higher sediment yields.
Most drainage areas are composed of more than one rock type. In some areas the sedimentary rocks have been folded, and rocks of different resistance are exposed, with hard rocks forming ridges and mountains and weak rocks forming valleys. The erosional development of such a terrain is complex, and the sediment produced by a drainage basin of this kind will reflect the complex geologic situation, the greater part of the sediment yield being derived from the areas underlain by the rocks that are most susceptible to erosion.
Geomorphic variables
The character of the topography of a drainage basin significantly influences the quantity and type of runoff and sediment yield. The steeper a slope, the greater is the gravitational force acting to remove earth materials from the slope. In fact, the rate of movement of rocks and soil particles is directly related to the sine of the angle of slope inclination.
Steep slopes are readily eroded, and it follows that drainage basins with a great range of relief or steep average slope will produce not only higher sediment yields but coarser sediment. The average slope of a drainage basin can be expressed simply as a ratio of basin relief to basin length. Sediment yields increase exponentially with an increase in this relief–length ratio.
Another important characteristic of a drainage system is the spacing and distribution of drainage channels within the drainage basin. This is referred to as the texture of the topography, and it can be described by a ratio of total channel length to drainage area. This ratio is the drainage density of the system. High drainage density indicates numerous, closely spaced channels that provide an escape route for both runoff and its entrained sediment load.
When relief–length ratio (r), expressing the role of gravity, is combined with drainage density (d), expressing the efficiency of the drainage system, this yields a texture-slope product (rd), a parameter that describes the gross morphology of a drainage system. Hence it is not surprising that it is closely related to sediment yield of small drainage basins of similar geology and land use.
The relation between the texture-slope product and sediment yield is such that a high sediment yield can be expected from basins with a large drainage density and steep slope. For basins with similar relief–length ratios, those with the highest drainage density produce the greater quantity of sediment. In general, however, the basins with the highest drainage density are also those with the steepest slope.
Many geomorphic characteristics can be related to sediment yield, but it can be stated with assurance that the steeper and the better drained the system, the greater will be the quantity of sediment produced per unit area.
The relationship may be used to estimate yield from other drainage basins in the region from which these data were obtained. Similar relations may be developed for other regions when sufficient geomorphic data become available.
In all studies, the sediment yield per unit area has been found to decrease as the size of the drainage basin increases. This reflects the previously discussed downstream decrease in gradient and slope and the increase in area available for temporary storage of sediment. Therefore total sediment yield per unit area invariably is related inversely to drainage area. Several other factors are involved, of course, but the largest drainage basins do not produce the largest quantity of sediment per unit area of drainage basin.
The morphology of a drainage basin is significantly related to sediment yield, but scientists have not yet done sufficient research to enable the prediction of sediment yields from drainage basins in the diverse regions of the world.
It is difficult to separate the influences of climate and vegetation on erosion and sediment yield, because the primary effect of climate on sediment yield is determined by the interaction between vegetation and runoff. This effect is displayed by the contrast between the dissolved load and the suspended load and bed load transported by streams. Dissolved load increases from a negligible amount in arid regions to 60 tons per square kilometre in humid regions, where chemical weathering and groundwater contribution to river flow is greatest. The dense vegetational cover of humid regions retards runoff and aids infiltration, thereby enhancing the effects of chemical decomposition of the rocks and soils to produce soluble material. The available data also show a sharp increase in sediment yield (suspended and bed load) as precipitation increases from low to moderate amounts. In semiarid regions, however, the increase of vegetation density with increased precipitation exerts a significant influence on erosion; and sediment transport and sediment yield decrease as the climate becomes increasingly humid. This relationship can, of course, be significantly modified by human activities. As the previously mentioned effect of urbanization demonstrates, removal of vegetation from the land in humid regions greatly accelerates erosion, and it may increase sediment yield to the maximum expected in semiarid regions.
Average temperature also affects sediment yields. The hotter the climate, the more water is lost to evapotranspiration, and the critical zone where vegetation becomes dominant consequently shifts to areas of higher precipitation.
The effect of vegetational cover on sediment yield has been discussed previously for areas where fires have destroyed much of the cover and catastrophically increased erosion and export of sediment from the system. Additional data on the effect of vegetation on erosion rates reveal that with a 65 percent plant cover little erosion will occur, but as plant cover decreases erosion increases significantly.
Although erosion increases greatly with a decrease in plant cover between 20 and 15 percent, it cannot continue to increase at this high rate. At some point, the maximum rate of erosion of the soil will be achieved. At some value of low-plant-cover density, the influence of vegetation must be negligible; erosion then will be determined only by soil erodibility.
Although average precipitation significantly influences vegetation type and density and the sediment yield, it has been demonstrated that, for a given quantity of annual precipitation, sediment yields will be greatest where highly seasonal (season) (e.g., monsoonal) climatic conditions prevail. Precipitation, when concentrated during a few months of the year, produces large quantities of sediment because of the higher intensity of the precipitation events and the long dry season when vegetational cover is severely weakened by drought.
Climate also plays a role in determining the type of sediment produced by a drainage basin. A study of the type of sediment deposited on the inner continental shelf reveals that the type of sediment (mud, sand, or gravel) is indeed influenced by climate. Mud, for example, is most abundant off shores of high temperature and rainfall, where chemical weathering is important. Gravel is common off areas of both low temperature and rainfall, where mechanical weathering is dominant. Sand is found everywhere, but it is most abundant in areas of moderate climate and in arid areas. Average temperature also may be important where the annual temperature is below the freezing point.
Rivers as agents of landscape evolution
Every landform (continental landform) at the Earth's surface reflects a particular accommodation between properties of the underlying geologic materials, the type of processes affecting those materials, and the amount of time the processes have been operating. Because landforms are the building blocks of regional landscapes, the character of the local surroundings is ultimately controlled by those factors of geology, process, and time—a conclusion reached in the late 19th century by the noted American geologist and geographer William Morris Davis. In some regions, severe climatic controls cause a particular process agent to become preeminent. Deserts, for example, are often subjected to severe wind action, and the resulting landscape consists of landforms that reflect the dominance of erosional or depositional processes accomplished by the wind. Other landscapes may be related to processes operating beneath the surface. Regions such as Japan or the Cascade Range in the northwestern part of the United States clearly have major topographic components that were produced by repeated volcanic activity. Nevertheless, rivers are by far the most important agents in molding landscapes because their ubiquity ensures that no region of the Earth can be totally devoid of landforms developed by fluvial processes.Rivers are much more than sluiceways that simply transport water and sediment. They also change a nondescript geologic setting into distinct topographic forms. This happens primarily because movement of sediment-laden water is capable of pronounced erosion, and when transporting energy decreases, landforms are created by the deposition of fluvial sediment. Some fluvial features are entirely erosional, and the form is clearly unrelated to the transportation and deposition of sediment. Other features may be entirely depositional. In these cases, topography is constructed of sediment that buries some underlying surface that existed prior to the introduction of the covering sediment. Realistically, many fluvial features result from some combination of both erosion and deposition, and the pure situations probably represent end members of a continuum of fluvial forms.
Valleys (valley) and canyons
River valleys constitute a major portion of the natural surroundings. In rare cases, spectacular valleys are created by tectonic activity (diastrophism). The Jordan River and the Dead Sea, for example, occupy a valley that developed as a fault-bounded trough known as a rift valley. The distinct property of these and other tectonically controlled valleys is that the low topographic zone (valley) existed before the river. Notwithstanding tectonic exceptions, the overwhelming majority of valleys, including canyons and gorges, share a common genetic bond in that their characteristics are the result of river erosion—i.e., rivers create the valleys in which they flow. In most cases, erosion was accomplished by the same river that occupies the valley bottom, although sometimes rivers are diverted from one valley into another by a process known as stream piracy, or stream capture. Piracy of a large river into another valley often creates a situation where the original expansive valley is later occupied by a river that is too small to have created such a large valley. The opposite case also may occur. The implication here is that valley size is directly related to river size, an observation that generally holds true. Exceptions to this rule arise because of capture events during the evolution of a valley and because valley morphology is strongly influenced by variations in the bedrock into which the valley is carved.
A genuine bedrock valley is usually covered by valley-fill deposits that obscure the actual configuration of the valley floor. Therefore, little is known about valley morphology unless drill holes or geophysical techniques are employed to document the buried bedrock-alluvium contact. Where information is available, it suggests that the deepest part of most valleys is not directly beneath the river. Commonly, the influx of load at a tributary junction forces the river to the opposite side of the valley, a phenomenon demonstrated clearly in the upper Mississippi River Valley between St. Louis, Mo., and St. Paul, Minn.
Where a valley is devoid of thick deposits and is completely occupied by a river, the bedrock valley floor often develops an asymmetrical configuration such that the deepest part of the valley occurs on the inside of bends. This general rule is not inviolate because the position of incision depends on the amount of load entrained by the river. When sediment load is totally entrained and velocity is high, entrenchment will most likely occur on the inside of the bend. If deposition occurs or sediment cannot be entrained, however, incision will normally be on the outside of the bend. In straight reaches the deepest part of the valley floor is normally associated with an inner channel cut into bedrock. Its position is determined by where the river was at the time that it flowed at the level of the valley floor. Inner channels form as the culmination of a progressive change in erosional features during the initial phase of incision. Scour features gradually coalesce until a distinct channel appears that is able to contain the entire river flow. Inner channels are rarely seen except when exposed during excavation associated with dam construction. Where observed, such channels commonly have a narrow, deep gorgelike shape. For example, at the site of the Prineville Dam in the state of Oregon, the inner channel averages 21 metres wide and as much as 18 metres deep.
Valley evolution
The ultimate form assumed by any valley reflects events that occurred during its developmental history and the characteristics of the underlying geology. During initial valley development in areas well above regional baselevel, valley relief tends to increase as rivers expend most of their energy in vertical entrenchment. Valleys are generally narrow and deep, especially in areas where they are cut into unfractured rocks with lithologic properties that resist erosion (most igneous rocks, well-indurated sedimentary rocks such as quartzites, and high-rank, silica-rich metamorphic rocks). Abrupt changes in river and valley bottom gradients, such as knickpoints and waterfalls, are common in the initial developmental phase. As downcutting continues, however, rivers gradually smooth out the longitudinal profile of the valley floor. Eventually most, if not all, waterfalls are eliminated, and rivers reach an elevation close to their baselevel (see above). In this condition, more energy is expended laterally than vertically, and a river progressively broadens its valley floor. As a result, most river valleys change over time from narrow forms to broader ones, the shape at any time being dependent on baselevel, rock type, and rock structures.
In areas where pronounced macrostructures such as major folds or faults exist in the geologic framework, the position and character of valleys are controlled by those structures. For example, the folds in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States exert a very strong control on the orientation and form of many valleys developed in the region.
Formation of canyons and gorges
The most spectacular valley forms are canyons and gorges that result from accelerated entrenchment prompted by recent tectonic activity, especially vertical uplift. Canyons and gorges are still in the initial phase of valley development. They range in size from narrow slits in resistant bedrock to enormous trenches. Where underlying bedrock is composed of flat-lying sedimentary rocks, regional uplift creates high-standing plateaus and simultaneously reinvigorates the erosive power of existing rivers, a phenomenon known as rejuvenation. Vertical entrenchment produces different valley styles depending on the size of the river and the magnitude and rate of uplift. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, located in the southwestern United States and formed in response to uplift of the Colorado Plateau, has entrenched about 1,800 metres and widened its walls six to 29 kilometres during the past 10,000,000 years. The Grand Canyon is only one of many spectacular canyons that developed in response to uplift of the Colorado Plateau. Uplift of the Allegheny Plateau in the eastern United States has led to the creation of the narrow, deep valleys that are so prominent in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.
Canyons and gorges frequently develop across the trends of underlying macrostructures. In normal situations, valleys should follow the orientation of the major folds and faults; however, the geologic setting prior to uplift and the processes associated with tectonic activity permit the development of transverse canyons. Transverse canyons, gorges, or water gaps are most easily explained in terms of accelerated headward erosion of rivers along faults cutting across the trend of resistant ridges. In such cases, the fault zone allows rivers to preferentially expand through an already existing ridge of resistant rocks, thereby creating a canyon.
Most transverse canyons, however, are not associated with faults. When faults are absent, transverse canyons are usually interpreted as developing in one of two ways. First, valleys may have been eroded into the landscape before the tectonic features (folds and faults) were developed. Such macrostructures rise across the trend of these valleys, and if the rate of river downcutting can keep pace with the rate at which the structures rise, gorges or canyons will be developed transverse to the structural trend. Because the valleys are older than the tectonic displacement, they are called antecedent. Antecedent canyons have been identified in the Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes, the Pacific coastal ranges of the United States, and every other region of the world that has experienced recent or ongoing tectonism. Second, complexly folded and faulted terranes are sometimes buried by a variable thickness of younger sediment. Drainage patterns develop on the sedimentary cover in a manner similar to those formed in any basin where there is no structural control. If the region is vertically uplifted, the rejuvenated rivers begin to entrench and will eventually be let down across the trends of resistant rocks in the underlying complex of folds and faults. Canyons and their formative rivers following this evolutionary path are said to be superimposed. The concept of superimposition was first used to explain water gaps in the Appalachians, but superimposition has since been employed as a model for drainage evolution in most areas of the world that have experienced uplift during the Cenozoic Era (the past 65,000,000 years).
In light of the above, it is well to note that detailed studies of physiography are indeed rare in mountain belts where the initial topography created by deformation is still preserved. One area that has been investigated is the Zagros Mountain (Zagros Mountains) system near the borderlands of Iraq and Iran from eastern Turkey to the Gulf of Oman. In this region, none of the accepted models for the creation of transverse canyons is totally acceptable, even though all of them may be involved to a certain degree. Instead, it seems likely that drainage development associated with normal processes of denudation can produce canyons transverse to a fold belt (given some heterogeneity in the geologic framework) without requiring some unique preexisting condition in the system.
Floodplains (floodplain)
Floodplains are perhaps the most common of fluvial features in that they are usually found along every major river and in most large tributary valleys. Floodplains can be defined topographically as relatively flat surfaces that stand adjacent to river channels and occupy much of the area constituting valley bottoms. The surface of a floodplain is underlain by alluvium deposited by the associated river and is partially or totally inundated during periods of flooding. Thus, a floodplain is not only constructed by but also serves as an integral part of the modern fluvial system, indicating that the surface and alluvium must be related to the activity of the present river.
The above definition suggests that, in addition to being a distinct geomorphic feature, a floodplain has a significant hydrologic role. A floodplain directly influences the magnitude of peak discharge in the downstream reaches of a river during episodes of flooding. In extreme precipitation events, runoff from the watershed enters the trunk river faster than it can be removed from the system. Eventually water overtops the channel banks and is stored on the floodplain surface until the flood crest passes a given locality farther downstream. As a consequence, the flood crest on a major river would be significantly greater if its floodplain did not store water long enough to prevent it from becoming part of the downstream peak discharge. The capacity of a floodplain system to store water can be enormous. The volume of water stored during the 1937 flood of the Ohio River in the east-central United States, for example, was roughly 2.3 times the volume of Lake Mead, the largest artificial reservoir in North America. The natural storage in the Ohio River watershed during this particular event represented approximately 57 percent of the direct runoff.
Because a floodplain is so intimately related to floods, it also can be defined in terms of the water level attained during some particular flow condition of a river. In that sense a floodplain is commonly recognized as the surface corresponding to the bank-full stage of a river—i.e., the water level at which the channel is completely filled. Numerous studies have shown that the average recurrence interval of the bank-full stage is 1.5 years, though this value might vary from river to river. Nonetheless, this suggests that most floodplain surfaces will be covered by water twice every three years. It should be noted, however, that the water level having a recurrence interval of 1.5 years will cover only a portion of the relatively flat valley bottom surface that was defined as the topographic floodplain. Clearly parts of the topographic floodplain will be inundated only during river stages that are considerably higher than bankfull and occur less frequently. Thus, it seems that the definition of a hydrologic floodplain is different from that of the topographic floodplain, and how one ultimately studies a floodplain surface depends on which point of view concerning the feature is considered of greatest significance.
Floodplain deposits, origins, and features
Although valley-bottom deposits result from processes operating in diverse sub-environments, including valley-side sheetwash, the most important deposits in the floodplain framework are those developed by processes that function in and near the river channel. These deposits are normally referred to as (1) lateral accretion deposits, which develop within the channel itself as the river migrates back and forth across the valley bottom, and (2) vertical accretion deposits, which accumulate on the floodplain surface when the river overflows its channel banks.
In any valley where the river tends to meander, maximum erosion will occur on the outside bank just downstream from the axis of the meander bend. Detailed studies have shown, however, that deposition occurs simultaneously on the inside of the bend, the volume of deposition being essentially equal to the volume of bank erosion. Thus, a meandering river can shift its position laterally during any interval of time without changing its channel shape or size. Deposition on the inside of the meander bend creates a channel feature known as a point bar (see above River channel patterns (river)), which represents the most common type of lateral accretion. Over a period of years point bars expand laterally as the opposite bank is continually eroded backward. The bars progressively spread across the valley bottom, usually as a thin sheet of sand or gravel containing layers that dip into the channel bottom. Point bars tend to increase in height until they reach the level of older parts of the floodplain surface, and the maximum thickness of laterally accreted deposits is controlled by how deeply a river can scour its bottom during recurrent floods. A general rule of thumb is that river channels are probably scoured to a depth 1.75 to two times the depth of flow attained during a flood. Because bank-full depth increases in the downstream direction, the thickness of lateral accretion deposits should increase gradually down the valley.
Increment Rates of Overbank Deposition in Major Floods, TableVertical accretion (also called overbank deposition) occurs when rivers leave their channel confines during periodic flooding and deposit sediment on top of the floodplain surface. The floodplain, therefore, increases in elevation during a flood event. Overbank deposition is usually minor during any given flood event. Table 3 (Increment Rates of Overbank Deposition in Major Floods, Table) shows measured increments of vertical accretion of floodplain surfaces during a few major floods in the United States. The insignificant deposition reflects the documented phenomenon that maximum concentration of suspended load occurs during the rising phase of any flood. Thus, much of the potential overbank sediment is removed from the system before a river rises to bank-full stage.
Because lateral and vertical accretionary processes occur during the same time interval, alluvium beneath a floodplain surface usually consists of both type of deposits. The two types often differ in their particle-size characteristics, with lateral accretion deposits having larger grain sizes. These textural differences, however, are not always present. In fact, suspended-load rivers that transport mostly silt and clay develop point bars composed of fine-grained sediment. Conversely, mixed-load rivers with cohesive banks may deposit sand and gravel on a floodplain surface as vertical accretion deposits.
Floodplains also are developed by braided rivers, but the fluvial processes are more dynamic and less regular. Bars and bank erosion, for example, are not confined to one particular side of the channel, and the river often changes its position without laterally eroding the intervening material. Channels and islands associated with the braided-stream pattern become abandoned, and these eventually coalesce into a continuous floodplain surface when old channels become filled with overbank sediment. The result is that floodplain sediments in a braided system are often irregular in thickness, and recognition of the true floodplain sequence may be complicated because braided streams are often associated with long-term valley aggradation. In this case, the total deposit might appear to be very thick, but the actual floodplain sediment relates only to the present river hydrology. The true floodplain deposit, therefore, is merely a thin cap on top of a thick, continuous valley fill.
Topography developed on a floodplain surface is directly related to depositional and erosional processes. The dominant feature of lateral accretion, a point bar, is subjected to erosion during high discharge when small channels called chutes are eroded across the back portion of the point bar. As the river shifts laterally and chutes continue to form, point bars are molded into alternating ridges and swales that characterize a distinct topography known as meander scrolls. As the river changes its position, meander-scroll topography becomes preserved as part of the floodplain surface itself. Overbank processes also create microtopography. The latter includes natural levees, which are elongate narrow ridges that form adjacent to channels when the largest particles of the suspended load are deposited as soon as the river leaves the confines of its channel. Natural levees build vertically faster than the area away from the channel, which is known as a backswamp. For example, during the 1973 flood on the Mississippi River, 53 centimetres of sediment were deposited on natural levees, while only 1.1 centimetres accumulated in the backswamp area. The backswamp area of a floodplain is usually much more regular, and its flatness is disrupted only by oxbow channels (abandoned river channels) or by ridgelike deposits known as splay deposits that have broken through natural levees and spread onto the backswamp surface. Oxbows, or oxbow lakes, gradually fill in with silts and clays during normal overbank deposition, leaving that surface more regular than might be expected.
Time and the floodplain system
Increment Rates of Overbank Deposition in Major Floods, TableThe variety of floodplain deposits and features raises the question as to which process, lateral river migration or overbank flow, is the most important in floodplain development. There is probably no universal answer to this question, but rates of the depositional processes suggest that most floodplains should result primarily from the processes and deposition associated with lateral migration. Assuming that vertical accretion proceeds according to the increments shown in Table 3 (Increment Rates of Overbank Deposition in Major Floods, Table), the level of a floodplain constructed entirely by overbank deposition should rise at a progressively decreasing rate. This follows because as the floodplain surface is elevated relative to the channel floor, the river stage needed to overtop the banks is also increasing. The floodplain surface, therefore, is inundated less frequently, and the growth rate necessarily decreases. Indeed, studies have shown that the initial phase of floodplain elevation by vertical accretion is quite rapid because flooding occurs frequently. It is generally accepted that 80 to 90 percent of floodplain construction by vertical accretion would take place in the first 50 years of the process. A three-metre thick overbank deposit would probably take several thousand years to accumulate.
Increment Rates of Overbank Deposition in Major Floods, TableGiven the above, it seems certain that the total thickness of vertically accumulated sediment will depend primarily on the rate at which the river migrates laterally. In fact, the total thickness of overbank deposition will be controlled by the amount of time it takes a river to migrate across the entire width of the valley. For example, if a floodplain is one kilometre wide and the river shifts laterally at a rate of two metres a year, it will take approximately 500 years for the river to migrate completely across the valley bottom. At any given point in the valley bottom, several metres of overbank sediment may accumulate in that 500-year interval, but the entire deposit will be reworked by lateral erosion when the river once again reoccupies that particular position. Thus the lateral migration rate becomes a limiting factor on the thickness of vertical accretion deposits. Table 4--> provides a small sample of lateral migration rates in alluvial rivers of various sizes. Given the rapidity of lateral migration shown in these rivers, it is doubtful that the minor rates of vertical accretion shown in Table 3 (Increment Rates of Overbank Deposition in Major Floods, Table) could create floodplain surfaces that are predominantly formed by overbank deposition. This conclusion, however, cannot be considered as an inviolate rule. Many rivers have extremely slow rates of lateral migration when geologic conditions prevent bank erosion. In these cases, vertical accretion may be the dominant process of floodplain development.River terraces (river terrace)
Terraces are flat surfaces preserved in valleys that represent floodplains developed when the river flowed at a higher elevation than its present channel. A terrace consists of two distinct topographic components: (1) a tread, which is the flat surface of the former floodplain, and (2) a scarp, which is the steep slope that connects the tread to any surface standing lower in the valley. Terraces are commonly used to reconstruct the history of a river valley. Because the presence of a terrace scarp requires river downcutting, some significant change in controlling factors must have occurred between the time that the tread formed and the time that the scarp was produced. Usually the phase of trenching begins as a response to climatic change, tectonics (movement and deformation of the crust), or baselevel lowering. Like most floodplains, abandoned or active, the surface of the tread is normally underlain by alluvium deposited by the river. Strictly speaking, however, these deposits are not part of the terrace because the term refers only to the topographic form.
The extent to which a terrace is preserved in a valley usually depends on the age of the surface. Old terraces are those that were formed when the river flowed at very high levels above the present-day river channel, while terraces of even greater age are those usually cut into widely separated, isolated segments. In contrast, very young terraces may be essentially continuous along the entire length of the trunk valley, being dissected only where tributary streams emerge from the valley sides. These young terraces may be close in elevation to the modern floodplain, and the two surfaces may be difficult to distinguish. This difficulty emphasizes the importance of how a floodplain and terrace are defined. Presumably the surface of a terrace is no longer related to the modern hydrology in terms of frequency and magnitude of flow events. Thus, any flat surface standing above the level inundated by a flow having a recurrence interval of 1.5 years is by definition a terrace. The complication arises, however, because some low terraces may be covered by floodwater during events of higher magnitude and lower frequency. These terrace surfaces are inundated by the modern hydrologic system but less frequently than the definition of a hydrologic floodplain would allow. In some cases, a low terrace may be underlain by sediment that has been continuously deposited for thousands of years during infrequent large floods.
Terraces are most commonly classified on the basis of topographic relationships between their segments. Where terrace treads stand at the same elevation on both sides of the valley, they are called paired terraces. The surfaces of the paired relationship are presumed to be equivalent in age and part of the same abandoned floodplain. Where terrace levels are different across the valley, they are said to be unpaired terraces. In most cases the staggered elevations in these systems were formed when the river eroded both laterally and vertically during the phase of degradation. Levels across the valley, therefore, are not precisely the same age but differ by the amount of time needed for the river to cross from one side of the valley to the other. Actually, the topographic classification is purely descriptive and is not intended to be used as a method for determining terrace origin. A more useful classification provides a genetic connotation by categorizing terraces as either erosional or depositional. Erosional terraces are those in which the tread (abandoned floodplain) has been formed primarily by lateral erosion under the conditions of a constant baselevel. Where erosion cuts across bedrock, the terms bench, strath, or rock-cut terrace are employed. The terms fill-cut or fillstrath are used to indicate that the lateral erosion has occurred across unconsolidated debris. Depositional terraces are those in which the tread represents the upper surface of a valley fill.
Rock-cut terraces and depositional terraces can be distinguished by certain properties that reflect their mode of origin. Rock-cut surfaces are usually capped by a uniformly thin layer of alluvium, the total thickness of which is determined by the depth of scour of the river that formed the terrace tread. In addition, the surface eroded across the bedrock or older alluvium is remarkably flat and essentially mirrors the configuration of the tread. In contrast, alluvium beneath the tread of a depositional terrace can be extremely variable in thickness and usually exceeds any reasonable scouring depth of the associated river; moreover, the eroded surface in the bedrock beneath the fill can be very irregular even though the surface of the terrace tread is flat. The most difficult terrace to distinguish by these criteria are erosional terraces that are cut across a thick, unconsolidated valley fill.
Origin of river terraces
The treads of river terraces are formed by processes analogous to those that produce floodplains. In depositional terraces, however, the origin of the now abandoned floodplain is much less significant than the long-term episode of valley filling that preceded the final embellishment of the tread. The thickness of valley-fill deposits is much greater than anything that could be produced by vertical accretion on a floodplain surface. In fact, most of the valley fill is composed of channel deposits rather than floodplain deposits. Thus, the sediment beneath a depositional terrace reflects a continuously rising valley floor. The tread represents the highest level attained by the valley floor as it rose during this episode of aggradation, and the upper skim of the deposit is that affected by processes of floodplain origin. What caused the extended period of valley filling is thus the important aspect of depositional terraces rather than the processes that developed the final character of the tread.
Valley filling that creates the underpinning of a depositional terrace occurs when the amount of sediment produced in a basin over an extended period of time is greater than the amount that the river system can remove from the basin. Usually this phenomenon is produced by climate change, influx of glacial outwash, uplift in source areas, or rises in baselevel that trigger deposition in the lower portions of the basin. Development of the actual terrace requires an interval subsequent to valley filling during which the river entrenches into the fill. Many of the same factors that trigger valley filling are those which, oppositely impressed, initiate the episode of entrenchment.
The relationship between glaciation and depositional terraces constitutes the cornerstone of reconstructing geomorphic history in valleys that have been glaciated. The balance between load and discharge that ultimately determines whether a river will deposit or erode is severely altered during glacial episodes. An enormous volume of coarse-grained bed load is carried by an active glacier and released at the glacial margin. This influx of sediment simply overwhelms the downstream fluvial system, even though meltwater produced near the ice margin provides greater than normal transporting power to a river emerging from the glacier. As a result, valley reaches downstream from the ice margin begin to fill with coarse debris (outwash), which cannot be transported on the channel gradient that existed prior to the glacial event. Deposition ensues, and the valley aggrades until the gradient, load, and discharge conditions are modified enough to allow transport of the entire load or to initiate river entrenchment into the fill.
Valley fills composed of outwash and the depositional terraces that result from later entrenchment are closely associated with moraines (moraine) (ridges composed of rock debris deposited directly by ice) developed simultaneously at the ice margin. Characteristically the gradient on the terrace surface increases drastically near the moraine, and outwash beneath the terrace tread thickens significantly and becomes notably more coarse-grained. The terrace and its associated alluvium end at the moraine, being totally absent up the valley from the morainal position. This allows the location of an ice margin to be determined as the upstream extremity of an outwash terrace even if the associated moraine has been removed by subsequent erosion.
In unglaciated river systems, valley fills are most commonly associated with climatic changes, tectonics, or rising sea levels. Climatically produced valley aggradation is controlled by very complex interrelationships between precipitation, vegetation, and the amount of sediment yielded from basin slopes. Every climatic regime has a particular combination of precipitation and vegetation type and density that will produce a maximum value of sediment yield. The effect of a particular climate change can increase or decrease sediment yield in a basin, depending on what conditions existed prior to the climate change with respect to the values that would produce the maximum yield.
In contrast to depositional terraces, erosional terraces are specifically related to the processes of floodplain development. Erosional terraces are those in which lateral river migration and lateral accretion are the dominant processes in constructing the floodplain surface that subsequently becomes the terrace tread. Most of the terrace surface is underlain by point bar deposits. These deposits are usually thin and maintain a constant thickness of sediment that rests on a flat surface eroded across the underlying bedrock or unconsolidated debris. The thickness of the point bar deposits is controlled by the depth to which the formative river was able to scour during the formation of the floodplain. Any thickness greater than the depth of scour indicates that deposits underlying the tread represent a valley fill (depositional terrace) rather than an erosional terrace. Rock-cut terraces were first and best described in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming, although some of the terraces in that area may be depositional in origin.
Terraces and geomorphic (geomorphic cycle) history
The use of terraces to determine regional geomorphic history requires careful field study involving correlation of surfaces within a valley or between valleys. The process is not easy, because each terrace sequence must be examined according to its own climatic, tectonic, and geologic setting. Terraces that have been dissected into segments often have only isolated remnants of the original surface. These remnants are commonly separated by considerable distances, often many kilometres. Reconstruction of the original terrace surface requires that the isolated remnants be correctly correlated along the length of the valley, and every method used in this procedure has fundamental assumptions that may or may not be valid. Furthermore, errors in physical correlation of surfaces lead to faulty interpretation of valley history. This problem is exacerbated because fluvial mechanics may be out of phase in different parts of a valley or from one valley to its adjacent neighbour. For example, pronounced filling by outwash deposition (discussed above) may be occurring in the upper reaches of a major valley such as the Mississippi during the maximum of a glacial stage. At the same time, however, near the Gulf of Mexico, the lower reaches of the Mississippi River would be actively entrenching because baselevel (sea level) is drastically lowered during glacial periods when storage of ice on the continents upsets the balance in the hydrologic cycle. Deposition and entrenchment involved in terrace formation is clearly not synchronous along the entire length of such a river system.
In addition, it is now known that more than one terrace can result during a period of entrenchment. This indicates that the downcutting that presumably results during a change in climate or some other controlling factor may not be a continuous unidirectional event. Instead, the response to that change is complex. It often involves pauses in vertical entrenchment during which the river may form erosional terraces by lateral planation or depositional terraces by short intervals of valley alluviation. The complicating factor with regard to valley history is that multiple terraces may be formed during an adjustment to one equilibrium-disrupting change in factors that control fluvial mechanics.
Alluvial fans (alluvial fan)
Alluvial fans are depositional features formed at one end of an erosional-depositional system in which sediment is transferred from one part of a watershed to another. Erosion is dominant in the upper part of the watershed, and deposition occurs at its lower reaches where sediment is free to accumulate without being confined within a river valley. The two areas are linked by a single trunk river. Fans are best developed where erosion occurs in a mountain area and sediment for the fan is placed in an adjacent basin. A fan is best described topographically as a segment of a cone that radiates away from a single point source. The apex of the cone stands where the trunk river emerges from the confines of the upland area. It is possible, however, that the point source can shift to a position well down the original fan surface. This occurs when the trunk stream entrenches the fan surface, and the mountain-bred flow, still confined in the channel cut into the fan, eventually emerges at a location far removed from the mountain front. The location where the stream emerges onto the fan surface then becomes the point source for a still younger fan segment. Fans also expand upward and laterally. In many cases, adjacent fans merge at their lateral extremities, and the individual cone or fan shape becomes obliterated. Widespread coalescing of fans produces a rather nondescript topography that covers an entire piedmont area (stretch of land along the base of mountains) and is commonly referred to as a bajada, alluvial plain, or alluvial slope.
Alluvial fans have been studied in greatest detail in areas of arid or semiarid climate, where they tend to be larger and better preserved. This is especially true where considerable relief exists between the erosional part of the basin and the zone of deposition. Fans in this particular climatic setting have been described in various parts of the world, including the western United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Peru, Central Asia, and many other semiarid regions where mountains exist adjacent to well-defined basins. The dominance of fans in arid and semiarid regions does not mean that fans are absent in other climatic zones. On the contrary, fans can develop in almost any climatic zone where the physiographic controls are similar. For example, fans have been identified in Canada, Sweden, Japan, Alaska, and very high mountain areas such as the Alps and Himalayas. The one common factor that links these fans together, regardless of their climatic setting, is the similar plan-view geometry. Other characteristics, such as morphology and depositional processes, may be significantly different, however. The widespread distribution of fans has led to the characterization of these features as being one of two types—either dry or wet. Dry fans are those that seem to form under conditions of ephemeral flow, while wet fans are those that are created by streams that flow constantly. This classification suggests that fan type is climatically controlled, because ephemeral flow is normally associated with the spasmodic rainfall typical of arid climates, and perennial streamflow is more dominant in humid climates.
Size, morphology, and surface characteristics
The size of an alluvial fan seems to be related to many factors, such as the physiography and geology of the source area and the regional climate. There appears to be no lower limit to the size of fans as the feature may appear on a microscale in almost any environment. It is known from studies in various parts of the world that a large number of modern-day fans have a radius from 1.5 to 10 kilometres. Some fans have a radius as large as 20 kilometres, but these are rare because fans of that size tend to merge with their neighbours, and limited space in depositional basins often prevents free expansion. It is now firmly established that the area of a dry fan seems to be closely related to the area of the basin supplying the fan sediment. For example, in the western part of the United States, area of the fan and source basin area are related by a simple power function Af = cAdn, where Af is the area of the fan and Ad is the area of the drainage basin. The value of the exponent n is reasonably constant for fans in California and Nevada, with a value of approximately 0.9 when the measurements are made in square miles. The coefficient c in the equation, however, varies widely and reflects the effect of other geomorphic factors on fan size. The most important of these factors are climate, lithology of source rock, tectonics, and the space available for fan growth. Fans studied in Fresno County, Calif., for example, showed that for a given drainage basin area fans derived from basins underlain by mudstones and shale are almost twice as large as those that receive sediment from basins underlain by sandstone. In basins underlain by different rocks, the value of n was approximately the same, but the effect of particle size was seen clearly in the value of the coefficient c, which varied from 0.96 for sandstone basins to 2.1 in mudstone drainage basins. Presumably basins underlain by fine-grained sediments are much more erodible and produce a much greater sediment load.
Fans are, by the very nature of their semi-conical shape, convex upward across the fan surface. The longitudinal slope of a fan usually decreases from the apex to the toe even though its value at any particular location depends on the load-discharge characteristics of the fluvial system. Near the mountain front in the apical area, slopes on fans are commonly very steep, though they probably never exceed 10°. In their distal margins near the toe, gradients may be as low as two metres per kilometre (\\<1°). The steepest gradients are often associated with coarse-grained loads, high sediment production, and transport processes other than normal streamflow. These same factors may often counteract one another within any given region. The afore-mentioned fans derived from basins underlain by the mudstones are much steeper than fans of the same size related to sandstone basins. The small particle size would presumably create a more gentle slope, but this expectation is offset by the high rate of sediment production in the mudstone basins which produces a much greater total load.
Fan gradients are often known to have special characteristics. First, the gradient of most fans at the apex is approximately the same as that of the trunk river where it moves from the mountain area onto the fan itself. This indicates that deposition on the fan is not caused by a dramatic decrease in gradient as the trunk river passes from the source area to the fan apex. The decrease in velocity required for deposition to occur is caused by some change in hydraulic geometry or because total river discharge decreases as water infiltrates from the channel bottom into the fan material itself. Second, the normal concave-up longitudinal profile that exists on most fans between the apex and the toe is not a smooth exponential curve. Instead, on many fans such as some found in Canada, New Zealand, and the western United States, concavity is produced by the junction of several relatively straight segments, each successive down-fan segment having a lower gradient. Each of the individual segments is probably related to changes imposed on the channel of the trunk river upstream from the fan apex. On some fans, intermittent uplifts of the source area have increased stream gradients, and, in response to these spasmodic tectonic events, there formed a new fan segment that gradually adjusted its slope until it was essentially the same as the newly developed steeper slope of the trunk river. Segmentation, however, may also result from other factors, such as a climatic change that produces a different load/discharge balance. The overall longitudinal profile may be a sensitive indicator of changes that have occurred in the balance between erosional and depositional parts of the fluvial system.
Although fan size and gradients appear to be related to the characteristics of the drainage basin, considerable variation exists on the surface of fans that have been developed under the same physiographic, geologic, and climatic controls. Surface characteristics of dry fans can often be subdivided into major zones called modern washes, abandoned washes, and desert pavements (desert pavement). These different zones seem to reflect areas that are involved to a greater or lesser degree in modern fan processes. For example, on the Shadow Mountain fan in Death Valley, California, washes of various types make up almost 70 percent of the surface area, but only a few of them are occupied by present-day streamflow. These are modern washes and represent the primary areas of deposition on the fan surface under the present discharge regime. They normally contain unweathered sediment particles and have virtually no vegetation.
The large majority of washes are now abandoned, meaning that they are no longer occupied by flow coming from the mountain basins. Abandoned washes have a scrub vegetation, and the gravel in the channels tends to be coated with a dark surface veneer known as desert varnish. Most authorities believe that desert varnish, a brownish-black veneer of iron and manganese oxides, requires several thousand years to develop. This indicates that washes recognized as abandoned have not been occupied by water for millennia.
Desert pavements are surfaces composed of tightly packed gravel, the particles of which are covered by a thick varnish coating. The gravel usually exists as a thin surface cover or armour, which protects an underlying layer of silt that formed under long weathering of the original deposits. Silt that was originally in the spaces between the gravel at the surface has been blown away by wind action, leaving behind a lag deposit composed entirely of gravel. Areas of desert pavement are commonly cut by gullies that head within the pavement area itself. The gullies carry a fine-grained load, which is locally derived from the silt layer beneath the surface gravel cap. Because of this, they often meander and may stand at lower elevations than adjacent modern washes that originate in the mountains. This topographic relationship sets up a geomorphic situation that allows water flowing down modern washes to be diverted periodically into the gullies. With time, part of the desert pavement area may revert back into an active wash by shifting the entire position of the river draining from the mountain. When this occurs, the segment of the wash downstream from where it is diverted gradually turns back into an area of an abandoned wash. What results from these activities is the possibility that processes functioning on dry fans are continuously creating and destroying the various surface areas mentioned above. This means that modern washes will eventually become abandoned washes, and, with time, such abandoned washes will gradually turn into the smooth, heavily varnished surface of a desert pavement. At other places on the same fan, desert pavement areas are being converted back into modern washes, so that the history of the fan becomes a complex continuum of change referred to as dynamic equilibrium.
The dynamic equilibrium model is not accepted by all fan experts. Some believe fans are formed and destroyed (i.e., deposited and eroded) in response to climatic changes that produce different load/discharge relationships. Others hold that some fans have been building continuously for a long time and are approaching some type of equilibrium condition but as yet have not attained that condition. It should be noted that these diverse opinions have been produced by examination of the same fans. Thus, the significance of features and materials found on a fan surface is not so readily discernible that everyone will arrive at the same conclusion as to how they formed.
Fan deposits and depositional processes
Transfer of sediment from source basins to depositional sites on a fan surface involves flow consisting of several types, ranging from high-viscosity debris or mudflows to flows involving normal water. The type of flow experienced on any fan depends primarily on the geologic characteristics of the basin and on the magnitude of precipitation that initiates the flow event. In arid regions the ephemeral nature of rivers and the character of rainfall results in spasmodic rather than continuous deposition on the fan surface. The location of deposition tends to change repeatedly. Deposits of any single flow usually are confined to shallow channels and because of this assume a long, linear distribution. Each deposit may be up to several kilometres long and only 100 to 700 metres wide. The dimensions of each deposit depend on the viscosity of flow, the permeability of surface material, and how far down the fan flow can be held within a distinct channel. Although flow emerging onto the fan surface follows well-defined channels near the apex, water overflows the banks and spreads outward as diffuse flow at some point along the down-fan path of movement. Where the channel is capable of shifting laterally, the location of deposition tends to develop a sheet of rather poorly bedded sand and gravel in which individual layers can be traced for some distance away from the channel. Commonly these sheets are interrupted by thick deposits that represent entrenchment and backfill into the fan surface.
Debris flows or mudflows must follow well-defined channels because a greater depth of flow is needed to offset the high viscosity of the fluid. Nonetheless, debris flows may overflow banks and spread out as sheets, though their viscosity suggests that they will not spread as far laterally as normal water flows. Debris flows are so dense that they are capable of transporting large boulders for considerable distances. The distance of transport, however, is limited by the high viscosity of the fluid, and so movement down the channel may simply stop, even though the fluid is still confined within the channel. Fan deposits that result from debris flows are characteristically unsorted, having clast sizes that range from clay to boulders. Usually no sedimentary structures such as bed forms or cross-beds are observed in deposits of this type. Also, the deposits of debris flows are usually lobate and have well-defined margins often marked by distinct ridges. Some fans are built almost entirely by debris flows. The flow characteristics seem to be generated most commonly in arid or semiarid climates, where torrential rains are separated by periods of little or no precipitation. This pattern allows material to collect on the slopes of the source basin and provides the load necessary to generate a debris-flow pattern.
This does not mean that debris flows are restricted only to those climatic regions. Fans developed primarily by debris-flow action have been described in humid-temperate regions, such as New Zealand and Virginia in the United States. In general, fans in Virginia, found on the east flank of the Blue Ridge Mountains, are smaller than arid fans and do not have the same areal relationships as the dry fans in California. They are typically elongate and rather irregular. Such fans probably result from major storm events, which in some cases erode deep trenches near the apex and deposit coarse debris across the lower fan surface. Geologic evidence suggests that the interval between depositional events can be extremely long, some possibly having a depositional recurrence interval from 3,000 to 6,000 years. Therefore, alluvial fans developed by these processes may be extremely old and not necessarily related to the modern climate. This also is demonstrated in some fans in the White Mountains of California, which have been continuously accumulating for more than 700,000 years and appear to be totally composed of debris-flow deposits.
Deposition on true wet fans seems to be considerably different from that associated with dry fans. Fans developed in the Kosi River basin in India contrast drastically with classic dry fans. The Kosi fan has as its source the Himalayas, and sediment derived from that source is being collected in the piedmont area. During the last several hundred years, the Kosi River has shifted approximately 100 kilometres while creating its large wet fan. At the fan apex, sediment is characteristically coarse gravel, which is rarely transported far downstream. The river tends to widen drastically in a downstream direction, and braiding becomes the dominant channel pattern spread over an extremely wide area of the fan—approximately six kilometres. The shift in channel location seems to be a progressive event rather than the almost random shifting noted on dry fans. Fans developed by this perennial flow should have rather well-defined stratification and be very well sorted. Both of these characteristics have been demonstrated by experimental flume studies of wet fans, and such characteristics are occasionally shown in the natural field setting.
Although lateral shifting of modern washes is necessary for the development of some fan characteristics, it is equally important to recognize that the loci of deposition also migrate along radial lines during fan development. Such longitudinal shifting is facilitated by entrenching and/or backfilling the channel that links the source area to the fan. Incision at the fan apex produces a fan-head trench, which has a lower gradient than the fan surface. The trench is thus deepest at the apex and becomes shallower as it progresses down the fan; it eventually becomes part of the normal drainage system on the fan surface. This property is significant because sediment may be transported and deposited farther down fan in the confines of a trench than it would be in a normal surface channel. The location of fan deposition may thus depend on where the trench channel emerges onto the fan surface. Entrenchment near the fan apex can be temporary or permanent. Distinguishing between these two possibilities is critical in an analysis of fan origin, and it often demands an understanding of whether the fan surface is still part of the active system. Many fan-head trenches appear to be short-term features in that they show evidence of alternating episodes of trenching and filling. In that sense, the entrenchment is temporary in nature. Experimental studies of wet fans and field observations have increased scientific perception of how the temporary nature of fan-head trenches is controlled. In wet fans, sediment is spread as a sheet over most of the area near the fan apex. Deposition in the down-fan area, however, occurs in numerous braided channels. This depositional pattern will continue until the fan slope near the apex becomes so steep that it initiates vertical incision by the trunk river. The result of incision is the fan-head trench. Flow becomes confined within that channel rather than being spread evenly across the upper part of the fan. Thus, the fan surface near the apex is temporarily starved of sediment, and most of the water and debris coming from the source area is transported down the fan in the entrenched channel. As entrenchment migrates upstream into the source area, increased load is derived as the trunk river is rejuvenated. The load is subsequently transported downstream and deposited in the fan-head trench. This initiates a phase of deposition within the trench that raises the channel floor until the trench is totally filled, and deposition begins again over the entire apical area. Eventually the gradient becomes over-steepened and the process repeats itself. In this case, it is clear that the fan-head trench is temporary. The entire fan may continue to grow with time, but the apex area experiences episodes of entrenchment during which sediment is reworked and moved farther down the fan. These episodes alternate with filling of the channel until the slope of the fan near the apex is increased to a threshold condition.
Temporary entrenchment may result from processes other than the built-in system described above. It may be that alternating trenching and filling results when fan processes change during variations of climate that produce different amounts of sediment, rainfall, and discharge. In such a case, the primary driving force is external to the system and is involved more with characteristics of the drainage basin than with processes operating at the fan apex.
In some cases, entrenchment on a fan surface is permanent or certainly long-term. Depths of incision are often greater than 30 metres below the fan surface, making trenches of that magnitude very difficult to refill. The cause of incision of this magnitude is usually external to the fan system itself. In basins of deposition that are open, the most common cause of permanent entrenchment is a decline in baselevel by the river flowing through the basin. This will initiate a wave of fan incision that is propagated up the fan from the toe. Eventually the entire fan is dissected when entrenchment reaches the apex and proceeds into the drainage basin. When this occurs, the fan surface standing above the trench is no longer part of the active fan. In fact, soils will develop on the alluvium, and drainage networks will be established on the old fan surface.
Economic significance
Alluvial fans are important for a variety of practical reasons. In some cases, very porous and permeable fan deposits are the primary source of groundwater, which is used for irrigation and for water supply. This is especially true in arid or semiarid climates. Wet fans are known to have economic significance because their process mechanics tend to concentrate heavy mineral particles in placer deposits. As discussed above, experimental work on wet fans shows that water tends to spread as a sheet near the fan head, but flow down the fan is subdivided into many braided channels that shift their position laterally. This flow pattern is periodically interrupted by fan-head trenching. Therefore, as noted both in nature and in experimental flume studies, wet fans grow progressively with time, but processes producing alternating trenching and filling at the fan head tend to rework and distribute the sediment down the fan. Experimental studies in the United States have shown that heavy minerals derived from a source area are preferentially concentrated in the area of the fan head by repeated trenching and filling. The concentration is great enough to expect economic placer deposits to develop at the fan head and at the base of backfilled channels.
Perhaps the classic example of the connection between wet-fan processes and the concentration of valuable metals is the Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa, which ranks as one of the greatest gold-producing areas of the world. Although the six major goldfields in the basin and their sedimentary deposits are not entirely fluvial, gold seems to be concentrated in ancient fan deposits from the source areas of granite that originally contained the gold. Evidence suggests that each of these fields is associated with a wet fan that developed where a large river discharged from the source rocks.
Deltas (delta)
The most important landform produced where a river enters a body of standing water is known as a delta. The term is normally applied to a depositional plain formed by a river at its mouth, with the implication that sediment accumulation at this position results in an irregular progradation of the shoreline. This surface feature was first recognized and named by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who noted that sediment accumulated at the mouth of the Nile River resembled the Greek letter Δ (delta). Even though a large number of modern deltas have this triangular form, many display a variety of sizes and shapes that depend on a number of environmental factors. Thus, the term now has little, if any, shape connotation. Deltas, in fact, exhibit tremendous variation in their morphological and sedimentologic characteristics and also in their mode of origin. Most of the variation results from (1) characteristics within the drainage basin that provides the sediment (e.g., climate, lithology, tectonic stability, and basin size); (2) properties of the transporting agent, such as river slope, velocity, discharge, and sediment size; and (3) energy that exists along the shoreline, including such factors as wave characteristics, longitudinal currents, and tidal range. The shoreline zone, therefore, becomes the battleground between variable amounts and sizes of sediment delivered to the river mouth and the energy of the ocean waters at that site. The balance between these two factors determines whether accumulation of the river-borne sediment will occur or whether ocean processes will disperse the sediment or prevent its deposition. The combination of these numerous variables tends to create deltas that occur in a complete spectrum of form and depositional style.
Deltas are distributed over all portions of the Earth's surface. They form along the coasts of every landmass and occur in all climatic regimes and geologic settings. The largest deltas of the world are those created by major river systems draining regions that are subcontinental in size and yield abundant sediment from the watershed.
Classification of deltas
Deltas come in a multitude of plan-view shapes, as their characteristics are determined by the balance between the energy and sediment load of a fluvial system and the dynamics of the ocean. Various ways of classifying deltas have been devised. One of the more widely used schemes is based on deltaic form as it reflects controlling energy factors. This scheme divides deltas into two principal classes: high-constructive and high-destructive.
High-constructive deltas develop when fluvial action and depositional process dominate the system. These deltas usually occur in either of two forms. One type, known as elongate, is represented most clearly by the modern bird-foot delta of the Mississippi River. The other, called lobate, is exemplified by the older Holocene deltas of the Mississippi River system. Both of these high-constructive types have a large sediment supply relative to the marine processes that tend to disperse sediment along the shoreline. Normally, elongate deltas have a higher mud content than lobate deltas and tend to subside rather rapidly when they become inactive.
High-destructive deltas form where the shoreline energy is high and much of the sediment delivered by the river is reworked by wave action or longshore currents before it is finally deposited. Deltas formed by rivers such as the Nile and the Rhône have been classified as wave-dominated. In this class of high-destructive delta, sediment is finally deposited as arcuate sand barriers near the mouth of the river. In another subtype, called tide-dominated, tidal currents mold the sediment into sandy units that tend to radiate in a linear pattern from the river mouth. In such a delta, muds and silts are deposited inland of the linear sands, and extensive tidal flats or mangrove swamps characteristically develop in that zone.
Considerable attention has been given to deltas that are composed of very coarse deposits—those of sand and gravel. Deltas developing from this type of material are commonly classified as either fan deltas or braid deltas. A fan delta is a depositional feature that is formed where an alluvial fan develops directly in a body of standing water from some adjacent highland. A braid delta is a coarse-grained delta that develops by progradation of a braided fluvial system into a body of standing water. The two are related by the fact that they are composed primarily of very coarse sediment; however, they differ in that braid deltas result from well-defined, highly channelized braided rivers that are deeper and have more sustained flow than streams which develop alluvial fans. In addition, the braided system that ultimately forms the braid delta may have its source far removed from the body of standing water and may in fact consist of large alluvial plains rather than the restricted areal and longitudinal extent associated with alluvial fans.
Morphology of deltas
Deltas consist of three physiographic parts called the upper delta plain, the lower delta plain, and the subaqueous delta. The upper delta plain begins as the river leaves the zone where its alluvial plain is confined laterally by valley walls. When the valley wall constraint ends, the river breaks into a multitude of channels, and the depositional plain widens. This point source of the upper delta plain can be thought of as the apex of the entire delta, which is analogous to the same reach of an alluvial fan. The entire upper delta plain is fluvial in origin except for marshes, swamps, and freshwater lakes that exist in areas between the many river channels. The surface of the upper delta plain is above the highest tidal level and thus is not affected by marine processes. In contrast, the lower delta plain is occasionally covered by tidal water. For this reason, the boundary between the upper delta plain and the lower delta plain is determined by the maximum tidal elevation. Features and deposits in the lower delta plain are the result of both fluvial and marine processes. Tidal flats, mangrove swamps, beach ridges, and brackish-water bays and marshes are common in this zone.
Deltas affected by high tidal ranges, such as those constructed by the Niger River and the Ganges–Brahmaputra system, are dominated by marine incursions and expansive lower delta plains. For example, the Ganges–Brahmaputra system in Bangladesh has a lower delta plain that occupies more than half of its total surface area of 60,000 square kilometres and is characterized by enormous mangrove swamps. Low tidal ranges result in deltas having much better developed upper delta plains (e.g., the Nile of Egypt and the Volga of Russia).
A subaqueous delta plain is located entirely below sea level, and marine processes dominate the system. This part of the delta is responsible for the topographic bulge seen on the continental shelf seaward of channels that flow across the exposed delta plains. Sediment-laden river flow entering the ocean in well-defined channels loses transporting power where the channels end, and sediment is deposited as the subaqueous delta plain. Large subaqueous plains are best developed where the continental shelf is shallow and gently sloping and where sediment loads derived from source basins are great. The subaqueous deltas of the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Huang Ho are broad and widespread in response to these controls. It is true, however, that even if these ideal conditions exist, a broad subaqueous delta does not always result. This is especially true where large submarine canyons exist near the terminations of river channels. In these cases, sediment delivered to the ocean is funneled down the canyon and deposited beyond the margin of the continental shelf. If a subaqueous delta develops in such situations, it is usually very small.
River channels that traverse the subaerial portion of a delta (upper and lower delta plain) serve as the conduits through which sediment is delivered to the subaqueous component. The channels assume any one of three patterns: (1) long, straight single channels, (2) braided or anastomotic (veinlike) multiple channels, or (3) channels that bifurcate (branch) in a downstream direction. In general, the channel pattern is controlled both by source basin characteristics (sediment size and volume, flood-discharge features, etc.) and marine properties (tidal range and wave energy, for example). Rivers transporting fine-grained sediment tend to develop either single channels or downstream bifurcating patterns. The single-channel pattern results where offshore wave energy is high (e.g., the Mekong and Congo deltas). Braided or anastomotic channels develop best where rivers carry a large volume of coarse-grained bed load. Branching distributaries form most commonly where tidal range and wave energy is low (e.g., the Mississippi and Volga deltas).
Most delta channels are bordered by natural levees that resemble those found on floodplains. These features are best developed by rivers that flood frequently and transport large volumes of suspended load, as, for example, the Mississippi. Interfluve areas (those between adjacent streams flowing in the same direction) are variable in character, depending on climate, tidal range, and offshore wave energy.
Deposits and stratigraphy
Delta growth indicates that a river delivers sediment to the shore faster and in greater volume than marine processes can remove the load. During the delta-building process, sediment is distributed in such a way that the feature develops a unique form. Under normal discharge conditions, sediment remains within the channel until it reaches the river mouth. No lateral dispersion of the load occurs on the subaerial delta plain, and because river velocity is so low, waves and currents spread the fine-grained portion of the sediment laterally along the delta front. During floods, however, suspended sediment and organic matter are deposited in the interfluve areas, causing those portions of the subaerial delta to aggrade. The high river velocity at the mouth offsets wave and current action, allowing sediment to be transported farther seaward. This facilitates accumulation at the delta front and causes the subaqueous delta to prograde.
The dispersal of sediment during floods and normal discharges creates a well-defined horizontal and vertical depositional sequence. On the subaerial delta plain, silts and clays accumulate vertically in inter-distributary zones. At the mouths of deltaic rivers, marine processes rework fine-grained sediment, but more coarse deposits of sands and silts usually build forward while maintaining a steep seaward slope. Smaller clay particles pass over the delta slope and are deposited on the continental shelf in front of the subaqueous delta plain. Therefore, in a horizontal sense, many deltas have silty, organic-rich deposits in their subaerial portion, though channel sands and levee deposits interrupt the fine-grained interfluve sequence. More coarse sediment is deposited at the river mouth, and very fine-grained materials (clays) accumulate beyond the delta front. The vertical sequence is essentially the same with marine clays at the lowest elevation (greatest depth), silts and sands at nearshore depths, and silts, clays, and organics—along with associated channel and levee sands—at the highest (subaerial) elevations. This model of alluviation does not accommodate very coarse (gravel and sand) deposition on the subaerial delta plain, which provides the special deltaic types known as fan deltas or braid deltas (see above), but it is representative of most of the major deltas of the world.
Deposits found in the deltaic stratigraphic sequence were named topset, foreset, and bottomset by the American geologist Grove K. Gilbert (Gilbert, Grove Karl) in his 1890 report on Lake Bonneville, the vast Pleistocene ancestor of what is now the Great Salt Lake of Utah. Although Gilbert examined small deltas along the margins of the ancient lake, the stratigraphic sequence he observed is similar to that found in large marine deltas. Topset beds are a complex of lithologic units deposited in various sub-environments of the subaerial delta plain. Layers in the topset unit are almost horizontal. Foreset deposits accumulate in the subaqueous delta front zone. The deposits are usually coarser at the river mouth and become finer as they radiate seaward into deeper water. Strata in the foreset unit are inclined seaward at an angle reflecting that of the delta slope or front. In large marine deltas the beds rarely dip more than 1°, but where bed load is coarse, such as in braid deltas, foreset beds may be inclined at angles greater than 20°. Foreset layers are beveled at their landward positions by topset beds, which expand horizontally as the entire delta advances into the ocean. At their seaward extremity, foreset beds grade imperceptibly into the bottomset strata. Bottomset deposits are composed primarily of clays that were swept beyond the delta front. These beds usually dip at very low angles that are consistent with the topography of the continental shelf or lake bottom in front of the subaqueous delta. This depositional environment is commonly referred to as the prodelta zone.
Deltas and time
One of the most important perceptions needed to understand deltas is how their depositional framework changes with time. Because delta characteristics are controlled by factors that are subject to change, it follows that deltaic growth patterns are dynamic and variable.
The most significant effect is that the site of deposition shifts dramatically with time. This occurs because the channel gradient and transporting power of a delta river decreases as the deltaic lobe extends farther seaward and shorter routes to the ocean become available. These shorter pathways may begin far inland, usually being occupied when the river is diverted through breaches in levees called crevasses. This process effectively shifts the locus of deposition and initiates the development of a new deltaic lobe. For example, the Mississippi Delta actually consists of the coalescence of seven major lobes constructed at different times and positions during the last 5,000 years. In fact, the modern bird-foot delta of the Mississippi River is only a small part of the entire deltaic system, and there is good reason to believe that another major shift in the depositional position is imminent. The Atchafalaya River, a major distributary, branches from the Mississippi upstream from Baton Rouge, La., and its route to the ocean is approximately 300 kilometres shorter than the present course of the Mississippi. This channel carries 30 percent of the Mississippi flow, and sediment reaching Atchafalaya Bay (160 kilometres west of New Orleans) is actively building a new delta lobe. Complete diversion of the Mississippi discharge into the Atchafalaya will accelerate growth of the new delta. The present bird-foot delta will be abandoned and, starved of any incoming sediment, will become severely eroded by the unopposed attack of marine processes.
Even within a modern delta, water and sediment, funneled through crevasses, build smaller subdeltas, which are ephemeral in space and time. What emerges is a picture of a dynamic system in which depositional sites change over different time scales. On a short-term basis (years to decades), a limited area (subdelta) may receive sediment, but the position of accumulation shifts rapidly. On a longer time scale (hundreds to thousands of years), the position of an entire active delta may migrate over a considerable distance.
Estuaries (estuary)
Estuaries are partially enclosed bodies of water located along coastal regions where flow in downstream reaches of rivers is mixed with and diluted by seawater. The landward limit of an estuary is defined in terms of salinity, often where chlorinity is 0.01 parts per thousand. The inland extent of this chemical marker, however, varies according to numerous physical and chemical controls, especially the tidal range and the chemistry of river water. Actually, the term estuary is derived from the Latin words aestus (“the tide”) and aestuo (“boil”), indicating the effect generated when tidal flow and river flow meet. Nonetheless, if estuaries are defined on the basis of salinity, many coastal features such as bays, tidal marshes, and lagoons can be regarded as estuaries.
Estuaries have always been extremely important to humankind. From early times, they have served as centres of shipping and commerce. In fact, many seaports were originally founded at the seaward margin of major river systems. Concomitantly, some of the oldest civilizations developed in estuarine environments. In addition to shipping, much of the world's fishing industry is dependent on the estuarine environment. Many species of fish and shelled bottom dwellers spend much of their life cycle there. In most cases, these animals have a tolerance for wide ranges in salinity and temperature. Pollutants introduced by humans, however, can affect such forms of marine life significantly if large enough amounts of the contaminants accumulate among bottom sediments.
Origin and classification
Most modern estuaries formed as the result of a worldwide rise in sea level, which began approximately 18,000 years ago during the waning phase of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage. When glaciation was at its maximum, sea level was significantly lower than it is today because much of the precipitation falling on the continents was locked up in massive ice bodies rather than returning to the ocean. In response, rivers entrenched their downstream reaches as baselevel (sea level) declined. As the ice began to dissipate, sea level rose, and marine waters invaded the entrenched valleys and inundated other portions of the coastal zone, such as deltas and coastal plains. It is known that the subsidence of a coast produces the same effect as a rise in sea level; thus tectonic activity sometimes creates estuaries.
In general, estuaries develop in one of three ways. First, estuaries represent drowned valleys. The valleys may have been formed by normal river entrenchment (e.g., Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States) or as the result of glacial erosion. The latter type, called fjords (fjord), are deep, narrow gorges cut into bedrock by tongues of glacial ice advancing down a former stream valley (see glacial landform). Fjords are most common in Norway and the coastal margins of British Columbia, Can. Both valley types (river and glacial) became estuarine environments with the postglacial rise in sea level. Second, some estuaries develop when barrier islands and/or spits enclose large areas of brackish water between the open ocean and the continental margin. These depositional features restrict free exchange between river and marine water and create lagoons or partially enclosed bays that develop the chemical characteristics of an estuarine environment. Such settings are best exemplified in the Gulf Coast region of the United States (e.g., Galveston Bay), the Vadehavet tidal area of Denmark, the Swan Estuary of Western Australia, and the Waddenzee of The Netherlands. Third, some estuaries are clearly submerged in response to tectonic activity, such as down-faulted coastal zones or isostatically controlled subsidence (e.g., San Francisco Bay).
Physical oceanographers commonly classify valley-type estuaries by the process and extent of mixing between fresh water and seawater. A salt-wedge estuary is dominated by river discharge, and tidal effects are negligible. In this situation, fresh water floats on top of seawater as a distinct layer, which thins toward the ocean. A wedge-shaped body of seawater underlies the freshwater layer and thins toward the continent. The interface between the two water types is well defined, and very little mass transfer or mixing of the two waters occurs. Partially mixed estuaries are characterized by an increased tidal effect to a condition where river discharge does not dominate the system. Mixing of the two water types is prominent in this system and is caused by increased turbulence. Mass transfer of water involves movement in both directions across a boundary that becomes less distinct than the one found in the salt-wedge estuaries. In vertically homogeneous estuaries, the velocity of tidal currents is large enough to produce total mixing and eliminate the fresh/salt water boundary. The water salinity is constant in the vertical sense and tends to decrease toward the continent. In general, the classification of estuaries by mixing indicates that the more substantial the river discharge, the weaker is the mixing. In addition, the dominance of river flow causes a greater salinity gradient. This indicates that sizable fluvial activity tends to block the entrance of seawater into the estuary environment.
Sedimentation in estuaries
The bedrock floor near the mouth of most estuaries is usually buried by a thick accumulation of sediment. The texture and composition of sediment in estuaries in the United States is known to be a function of river-basin geology, bathymetry, and hydrologic setting. Where sediment supply is inadequate to fill drowned valleys, clay and silt are usually deposited in the central part of bays and grade shoreward and seaward into bodies of sand. Where sediment supply and tidal range are both large, such as in Oregon and northern California in the western United States, the clay and silt are commonly swept from the channels and deposited on the marginal flats. In the Gulf Coast region, small tides and abundant fine-grained sediment tend to create very shallow estuaries. Silt and clay are usually deposited in lagoons behind barrier bars, although these grade into sands around the lagoonal margins.
The character and distribution of estuarine sediment are influenced by many physical, chemical, and biologic processes, such as tidal currents, flocculation, bioturbation (the reworking and alteration of sediment by organisms), storms, morphology of the estuary, and human activities. The sediment type that is deposited, therefore, depends on the dynamics of the system, which in turn are controlled by an equilibrium between river and tidal flow. River discharge develops inertia, which results in the collision of river and ocean waters in the estuary itself. Most sediment is derived from the river system, and whether or not it is deposited within the estuary depends on how quickly the velocity is diminished by the effect of tidal currents and by the extent of the tidal range. Notwithstanding the above, it has been long recognized that net sediment transport in many open estuaries can be from the sea toward the land.
The river system through time
Natural river systems can be assumed to have operated throughout the period of geologic record, ever since continental masses first received sufficient precipitation to sustain external surface runoff. The Precambrian (Precambrian time) portion of the record, prior to 570,000,000 years ago, is complicated by the widely metamorphosed character of the surviving rocks, although even here the typical cross-bedding of shallow-water sands can be recognized in many places. The Cambrian and post-Cambrian succession of the last 570,000,000 years contains multiple instances of deposition of deltaic sandstones, which record intermittent deposition by rivers in many areas at many intervals of past time. The span since the Precambrian is long enough, at present rates of erosion, for rivers to have shifted the equivalent of 25 to 30 times the bulk of the existing continental masses, but the rate of erosion and sedimentation is estimated to have increased with time. Of necessity, river systems now in existence date from times not earlier than the latest emergence of their basins above sea level, but this limitation allows numbers of them to have histories of 100,000,000 years or more in length.
Drainage diversion by stream capture
A river system of appreciable size is likely to have undergone considerable changes in drainage area, network pattern, and profile and channel geometry. Adjoining streams compete with one another for territory. Although competition is effectively nil where divides consist of expanses of plateau or where opposing low-order streams of similar slope flow down the sides of ridges, it frequently happens that fluvial erosion is shifting a divide away from some more powerful trunk stream and toward a weaker competing trunk. In extreme cases, the height difference is so marked that a tributary head from one system can invade, and divert, a channel in the adjoining system: such diversion, termed stream capture, has already been noted as a principal mechanism in the adjustment of network patterns to structural patterns. Close general adjustment to structure implies multiple individual adjustments, unless the stream network has developed solely by the headward extension of tributaries along lines of structural and lithologic weakness: the network predicated on a single regional slope is dendritic in pattern. By encroachment and capture a successfully competing stream becomes yet more powerful, the headward extension of its basin increasing the discharge of the trunk channel and permitting reduction of slope; i.e., additional downcutting. Seaward extensions of basins occur where deltas lead the outbuilding of alluvial plains and where crustal uplift (and also at times strandline movements) result in emergence. Conversely, basin area is reduced along the seaward edge by submergence, in response to crustal depression or rise in sea level. The potential limits to basin size are fixed by available areas of continent with surface moisture surplus, in combination with theoretical optimum shape of basin; however, actual basin shapes, for all large rivers, are to some extent affected by crustal deformation.
Non-fluvial invasion and deposition
Derangements other than the captures effected in stream competition include those due to non-fluvial invasion and deposition. Regional flooding by basalts, as during the Tertiary Period (from 65,000,000 to 2,500,000 years ago) in the Deccan of India and the northwestern part of the United States, obliterates the former landscape and provides a new surface on which new drainage networks form. Major invasions by continental ice displaces fluvial systems for the time being. Glacial deposits, especially till sheets, can conceal the preglacial topography and provide initial slope systems for postglacial streams. Individual diversions occur at and near ice fronts, also where preglacial divides in mountain country are breached by the ice of caps or impounded mountain glaciers. The full history of drainage derangement by continental ice is often complex, depending on the particular combinations of preglacial outlet directions, extent of glacial invasion, relationship of regional slope to direction of ice advance, thickness of glacial sedimentation, amount and speed of postglacial isostatic rebound, and self-selection of postglacial outlet directions and drainage lines. The North American Great Lakes and Midwest areas, the Thames Basin in England, and the Eurasiatic plain all record intricate histories of damming during glacial maxima, with postglacial networks and outlets differing markedly from those of preglacial times. Glacial breaching of divides requires the passage of thick ice through a preglacial notch or gap, with erosion severe enough to provide a new drainage line when the ice melts. The spinal divide of Scandinavia was breached by the ice cap centred over the Gulf of Bothnia, just as the highland rim of Greenland is being breached by effluent glaciers today. After deglaciation, areas of divide breaching display streams with anomalous courses through gaps in major relief barriers. Morphologically related to glacial breaching, especially with respect to indeterminate present-day divides, are the disordered drainage nets of formerly glaciated terrains where bedrock is widely exposed and where relief is subdued.
Changes through time in channel slope have already been partly treated in connection with terraces. In the long view, streams must tend to reduce their slopes as the basin relief is lowered, although isostatic (balancing) compensation for erosional reduction of load largely offsets the reduction of slope. The effects involved here are independent of, although necessarily associated with, glacial–deglacial changes in the strandline level, crustal warping, and isostatic rebound from glacial reduction of load. It can be argued that large river systems, removing large quantities of sediment and dumping them offshore, should promote intermittent isostatic uplift when yield thresholds are passed and, in consequence, promote the generation of new waves of erosion that, working upstream, are recorded in sequences of cyclic knickpoints. The implications of this conceptual view have been applied especially to the unglaciated shield areas (central and oldest part of continents, generally) of tropical latitudes and extratropical parts of the Southern Hemisphere, in all of which rivers descend in high falls or lengthy cascades across the edges of major erosional platforms. In the shorter term, severe and rapid erosion of a trunk channel can leave a tributary valley stranded at height. Channel geometry demands that tributary glacier troughs should hang above the floors of main troughs, while tributary stream valleys often hang above trunk valleys formerly occupied by long glacier tongues. Hanging valleys on shorelines are correspondingly due to the outpacing of channel erosion by cliffing.
Effects of climatic change (climate change)
Climatic shifts are known to be capable of effecting fill or clearance of channels and valleys: they can also change channel habit. In addition to the alternation in some near-glacial areas between braiding during maximum cold and meandering during interglacial warmth, the record includes conversions of channel width and meander pattern. On numerous mid-latitude streams, existing channels have been much reduced from their earlier dimensions; and on many, but by no means all streams, existing floodplains are contained in the floors of meandering valleys where the wavelength is determined by the plan of the floodplain as opposed to the existing channel. Valley meanders were cut by streams 20 to 100 times as voluminous as existing streams, at the bank-full stage. They illustrate only one variant, although a widespread one, of the underfit stream, which combines a former large with an existing reduced channel. Reduction to the underfit state is commonly, although not invariably, accompanied by the infilling of former large channels both laterally and from below, so that existing floodplains are contained in valley-bottom fills. Accidents of capture and glacial diversion apart, the underfit condition results generally from climatic shift. The last major shift responsible for channel shrinkage appears to have occurred in the interval 12,000–9,000 BP, or later in areas that were still ice-covered 9,000 years ago. Involving a reduction of bed width to as much as one-tenth of earlier values, and in meander wavelength by similar proportions, channel shrinkage is known to have been succeeded in well-studied areas by lesser fluctuations that are recorded in episodes of partial clearance followed by renewed fill. Significant alternations between cut and fill during the last 10,000 to 20,000 years have perhaps averaged a periodicity of 1,000 to 2,000 years. There is no a priori reason to suppose that the corresponding periodicity differed from this value during the whole Pleistocene (Pleistocene Epoch), 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 years in duration so far. Inferences about pre-Pleistocene fluctuations await detailed analysis of rates of deposition of graded beds, coral growth, and the like.
On account of the temporal–dynamic qualities that have been discussed, river channels and networks are to be regarded as open systems (those open to additions or subtractions of materials or energy through time), whether in relation to short-term adjustments to individual peak discharges, in relation to accommodation to the constraints of climate, vegetal cover, characteristics of infiltration and overland flow, or in relation to the long-term influences of crustal movement, interbasin competition, and land wastage. Channels and networks experience inputs and outputs of matter and energy. Some of them, but probably a small minority at any one time and for a minor duration of total time in any one channel or network, act as open systems in disequilibrium. The general tendency seems to be for channel and river systems to attain steady-state conditions, wherein negative feedback tends to counter individual disequilibrium tendencies, and counteracting effects ensure variations about recurrent norms of form and behaviour.
Additional Reading
General works
Discussions of all aspects of rivers are found in Luna B. Leopold, M. Gordon Wolman, and John P. Miller, Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology (1964); G.H. Dury (ed.), Rivers and River Terraces (1970); Richard J. Chorley, Stanley A. Schumm, and David E. Sugden, Geomorphology (1984); Arthur L. Bloom, Geomorphology: A Systematic Analysis of Late Cenozoic Landforms (1978); Dale F. Ritter, Process Geomorphology, 2nd ed. (1986); and Marie Morisawa, Rivers: Form and Process (1985). See also Laurence Pringle, Rivers and Lakes (1985); and the Rand McNally Encyclopedia of World Rivers (1980). Ed.Environmental problems attendant on river use are discussed in M.J. Stiff (ed.), River Pollution Control (1980); Environmental Effects of Cooling Systems (1980), a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency on cooling systems and thermal discharges from nuclear power stations; Cooling Water Discharges from Coal Fired Power Plants: Water Pollution Problems (1983), proceedings of an international conference; R.G. Toms, “River Pollution-Control Since 1974,” Water Pollution Control, 84(2):178–186 (1985); and M. Chevreuil, A. Chesterikoff, and R. Letolle, “PCB Pollution Behavior in the River Seine,” Water Research, 21(4): 427–434 (April 1987). Ed.
River channels and waterfalls
Works on the formation and change of river channels include Walter B. Langbein and Luna B. Leopold, River Meanders, Theory of Minimum Variance (1966), U.S. Geological Survey professional paper no. 422-H; Mark A. Melton, “Methods for Measuring the Effect of Environmental Factors on Channel Properties,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 67(4):1485–90 (April 1962); and N.A. Rzhanitsyn, Morphological and Hydrological Regularities of the River Net (1964; originally published in Russian, 1960).A dated but still useful source on waterfalls is the article by Theodore W. Noyes, “The World's Greatest Waterfalls,” National Geographic Magazine, 50:29–59 (July 1926), on the Niagara, Victoria, and Iguaçu falls. Modern treatments of waterfalls are rare; the interested reader might best consult the following references: H.F. Garner, “Derangement of the Rio Caroni, Venezuela,” Revue de Géomorphologie Dynamique, 16:54–83 (1966), describing the occurrence of Angel Falls; Martin von Schwarzbach, “Isländische Wasserfälle und eine genetische Systematik der Wasserfälle überhaupt,” Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie, 11:377–417 (Dec. 1967), one of the best general surveys of the several kinds and occurrences of waterfalls, with specific reference to Icelandic examples; Shailer S. Philbrick, “Horizontal Configuration and the Rate of Erosion of Niagara Falls,” Geological Society of America Bulletin, 81(2):3723–31 (Dec. 1970), providing a summary of information on the history of Horseshoe Falls and on the general recession of cap-rock-type falls; Eberhard Czaya, “Waterfalls and Rapids,” ch. 4 in his Rivers of the World (1981, reprinted 1983; originally published in German, 1981), pp. 121–137, which includes a list of famous waterfalls classified by location and height; and R.W. Young, “Waterfalls: Form and Process,” Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie Supplementband, 55:81–95 (1981).
Rivers as agents of landscape evolution
Literature concerning the evolution of valleys and the origin of transverse canyons is found mostly in older classic treatments of the topic, such as William Morris Davis, Geographical Essays (1909, reprinted 1954); and two articles from the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America: Arthur N. Strahler, “Hypotheses of Stream Development in the Folded Appalachians of Pennsylvania,” 56 (1):45–87 (Jan. 1945); and J. Hoover Mackin, “Erosional History of the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming,” 48(6):813–893 (June 1, 1937). An excellent discussion of the initial development of valleys and canyons in an area of recent tectonism is given in Theodore Oberlander, The Zagros Streams: A New Interpretation of Transverse Drainage in an Orogenic Zone (1965). Discussions and additional references about valley morphology in natural and experimental settings can be found in Stanley A. Schumm, The Fluvial System (1977); and Stanley A. Schumm, M. Paul Mosley, and William E. Weaver, Experimental Fluvial Geomorphology (1987).Detailed analyses of floodplains are provided by Edward J. Hickin and Gerald C. Nanson, “The Character of Channel Migration on the Beatton River, Northeast British Columbia,” Geological Society of America Bulletin, 86(4):487–494 (April 1975); and by two U.S. Geological Survey professional papers: M. Gordon Wolman and Luna B. Leopold, River Flood Plains: Some Observations on Their Formation (1957), no. 282-C; and Stanley A. Schumm and R.W. Lichty, Channel Widening and Flood-Plain Construction Along Cimarron River in Southwestern Kansas (1963), no. 352-D.Detailed discussions of terrace formation can be found in Luna B. Leopold and John P. Miller, A Postglacial Chronology for Some Alluvial Valleys in Wyoming (1954), U.S. Geological Survey water-supply paper no. 1261; and two papers in the Geological Society of America Bulletin: John H. Moss and William Bonini, “Seismic Evidence Supporting a New Interpretation of the Cody Terrace near Cody, Wyoming,” 72(4):547–555 (April 1961); and Dale F. Ritter, “Complex River Terrace Development in the Nenana Valley near Healy, Alaska,” 93(4):346–356 (April 1982).Important papers treating processes and characteristics of alluvial fans in detail include two U.S. Geological Survey professional papers: William B. Bull, Geomorphology of Segmented Alluvial Fans in Western Fresno County, California (1964), no. 352-E; and Charles S. Denny, Alluvial Fans in the Death Valley Region, California and Nevada (1965), no. 466. See also R. Craig Kochel and Robert A. Johnson, “Geomorphology and Sedimentology of Humid-Temperate Alluvial Fans, Central Virginia,” in Emlyn H. Koster and Ron J. Steel (eds.), Sedimentology of Gravels and Conglomerates (1984), pp. 109–122; Neil A. Wells and John A. Dorr, Jr., “Shifting of the Kosi River, Northern India,” Geology, 15(3):204–207 (March 1987); and Richard H. Kesel, “Alluvial Fan Systems in a Wet-Tropical Environment, Costa Rica,” National Geographic Resources, 1(4):450–469 (Autumn 1985). More general reviews and discussions of experimental work are Roger LeB. Hooke, “Processes on Arid-Region Alluvial Fans,” The Journal of Geology, 75(4):438–460 (July 1967); and William B. Bull, “Alluvial Fans,” Journal of Geological Education, 16(3):101–106 (June 1968).Extensive reviews of delta formation can be found in Martha L. Shirley (ed.), Deltas in Their Geologic Framework (1966); W. Fisher et al., Delta Systems in the Exploration for Oil and Gas (1969, reprinted 1974); and James P. Morgan, “Deltas—A Résumé,” Journal of Geological Education, 18(3):107–117 (May 1970). Detailed analyses of specific deltas, including the Mississippi River delta, can be found in Francis P. Shepard, Fred B. Phleger, and Tjeerd H. Van Andel (eds.), Recent Sediments, Northwest Gulf of Mexico (1960); and Richard J. Russell, “Geomorphology of the Rhône Delta,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 32(2):149–254 (June 1942), and River and Delta Morphology (1967).The characteristics and formative processes of estuaries are discussed in André Guilcher, Coastal and Submarine Morphology (1958); Maurice L. Schwartz (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Beaches and Coastal Environments (1982), with illustrated entries on estuaries and on estuarine coasts, deltas, habitats, and sedimentation; Russell Sackett, Edge of the Sea, rev. ed. (1985); and Eric C.F. Bird, Coasts: An Introduction to Coastal Geomorphology, 3rd ed. (1984). More technical treatment is presented in George H. Lauff (ed.), Estuaries (1967); Bruce W. Nelson (ed.), Environmental Framework of Coastal Plain Estuaries (1973); and L. Eugene Cronin (ed.), Estuarine Research, vol. l, Chemistry, Biology, and the Estuarine System (1975). Estuarine sediment is described for 45 estuarine zones of the United States in David W. Folger, Characteristics of Estuarine Sediments of the United States (1972), U.S. Geological Survey professional paper no. 742.
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