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| Question | Answer |
| Abstraction | Removal of water from rivers, lakes or groundwater for human use. |
| Attrition | A process of erosion. The material is moved along the bed of a river, collides with other material, and breaks up into smaller pieces becoming rounder and smaller. |
| Aquifers | permeable rock that can transfer or store below ground (ground water) |
| Bedload | the material carried by a river by being bounced or rolled along its bed. |
| Base flow | That part of a rivers discharge fed by groundwater. |
| Catchment area | Drainage basin |
| Channel network | the pattern of linked streams and rivers within a drainage basin |
| Clean water | water that is fit for human consumption and is therefore relatively free from pollutants |
| Channel | The part of a valley floor occupied by the flowing water of a stream or river. |
| Channel network | The system of tributary streams that join increasingly larger river channels in a drainage basin. |
| Condensation | when water vapour is cooled and changes state to form water droplets |
| Confluence | where two rivers/streams meet |
| Corrasion | a process of erosion, sometimes known as abrasion. This is when fine material rubs against the river bank and the floor of the channel. The bank is worn away, by a sand-papering action called abrasion, and collapses or the channel deepens. |
| Corrosion | a process of erosion. Some rocks forming the banks and bed of a river are dissolved by acids in the water |
| Cumecs | cubic metres per second, the unit for river discharge |
| Dam (& reservoir) | A barrier (made on earth, concrete or stone) built across a valley to interrupt river flow and create a man?made lake (reservoir) to store water. |
| Discharge | The quantity of water that passes a given point on a stream or river?bank within a given period of time. |
| Drainage basin | The area drained by a river and its tributaries, bounded by a watershed. |
| Deposition | the dropping of material that was being carried by a moving force, such as running water |
| Erosion | The wearing down of the land by water, ice, wind and gravity. |
| Flood | When river discharge exceeds river channel capacity and water spills out of the channel onto the floodplain and other areas. |
| Flood plain | That part of a valley floor either side of the river over which a river spreads depositing silt/allivium during seasonal floods. |
| Hydrograph | A graph on which variations in a rivers discharge are plotted against time. |
| Hydrological cycle | The unending movement of water between land, sea and atmosphere. |
| Impermeable | Rocks that do not allow water to pass through them. |
| Interlocking spurs | A series of ridges projecting out on alternate sides of a valley and around which a river winds its course. |
| Hydraulic action | a process of erosion. The sheer force of water hitting the banks of a river and bed of the river causing material to be dislodged and carried away. |
| Landform | A physical feature with recognizable characteristics e.g. waterfall, meander, formed by specific processes such as erosion or deposition. |
| Levee | A bank of sediment formed along the edge of a river channel deposited by floodwater. |
| Mass?movement | The movement of weathered rock down slope due to gravity, without the direct action of running water. |
| Meander | A pronounced bend in a river. |
| Oxbow lake | A crescent shaped lake which form when a meander bend is cut off from the main river channel. |
| Precipitation | The deposition of moisture on the Earths surface, in the form of dew, frost, rain, hail, sleet or snow. |
| River regime | The variation (seasonal pattern) in river discharge over the course of a year. |
| Pollution | the presence of chemicals, dirt or other substances which have harmful or poisonous effects on aspects of the environment such as rivers and the air |
| Reservoir | an area where water is collected and stored for human use |
| River cliff | An overhanging cliff that is found on the outer bend of a meander that is created due to lateral erosion of the bank of the river. |
| Saltation | a process of transportation. smaller stones are bounced along the bed of a river in a leap-frogging motion |
| Shortage / surplus | Areas where water supply is lower / higher than water demand from humans |
| Slip off slope | Sand and shingle deposited on inner bed of a meander, creating a slope, due to lateral erosion on the outer bend. |
| Solution | a process of transportation. Dissolved material is transported by the river. |
| Store | Places within a system where materials or energy are held for a time. Water Stores are features, such as lakes, rivers and aquifers, that receive, hold and release water |
| Storm flow | the increase in stream discharge caused by a period of intense rainfall |
| Streamflow | The flow of surface water in a well?defined channel. |
| Stream velocity | the speed at which water is flowing in a river at a given location and time |
| Suspension | a process of transportation. Fine material, light enough in weight to be carried by the river. It is this material that discolours the water. |
| Traction | a process of transportation. Large rocks and boulders are rolled along the bed of the river |
| Transfer | Flows of water between stores in the hydrological cycle. |
| Transport | the movement of a rivers load |
| Valley | A linear depression in the landscape formed by erosion, usually with a river channel at its lowest point. |
| Velocity (stream) | The speed of water flow in the river channel. |
| Water quality | A measure of how fit for human consumption water is. Polluted water has low water quality. |
| Watershed | The dividing line between one drainage basin and another. |
| Water table | The level below which the ground is saturated with water |
| Waterfall | A river landform created by erosion, where water drops steeply/vertically as it flows over a band of hard rock runs across the river channel which is a cliff like feature. |
| Watershed | the boundary between neighbouring drainage basins |
| Weathering | The chemical alteration and physical breakdown of rock by natural processes, without the involvement of any moving force |
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