River Processes Lab
Follow a river from source to sea. Learn how it erodes, transports and deposits material, and how those processes carve waterfalls, meanders, ox-bow lakes and floodplains.
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From source to sea 🌊
A river is a landscape machine. As it flows from the hills to the sea it **erodes** the land, **transports** the material, and **deposits** it again downstream. This lab follows those three processes and shows how they carve waterfalls, meanders, ox-bow lakes and floodplains along the way.
The words you need 🔑
Three processes and one landform underpin the topic:
Match each erosion process to what it does 🔗
- Hydraulic action
- Abrasion
- Attrition
- Solution
- The force of water pushes into cracks in the bank
- Rocks carried by the river scrape the bed and banks
- Rocks knock together and become smaller and rounder
- Soluble rock is slowly dissolved by the water
How is material moved? 💧
Which of these is a way a river TRANSPORTS its material?
- Saltation: bouncing pebbles along the bed
- Hydraulic action: water forcing into cracks
- Abrasion: rocks scraping the banks
- Deposition: dropping material when slow
One river, three courses 🏞️
A river changes character from source to mouth: - **Upper course**: steep and fast in floods; erodes **downwards**; V-shaped valleys and waterfalls - **Middle course**: gentler; the valley widens; meanders begin - **Lower course**: slow and full; **deposits** material; floodplains, levees and deltas Erosion dominates upstream; deposition dominates downstream.
Which are erosion? ✅
Select the TWO processes that are types of EROSION.
- Hydraulic action
- Attrition
- Saltation
- Deposition
Upper versus lower course ⚖️
The two ends of a river look and behave very differently.
Name that landform 💦
A river flows over a band of hard rock and drops steeply onto softer rock below. What landform is this?
- A waterfall
- A meander
- A floodplain
- A levee
Put it together 🧱
A river shapes the land as it flows. In the _____ course it cuts down to form a V-shaped _____. Rocks are worn smaller by _____. In the lower course the river _____ material to build a _____.
How a waterfall forms 🪜
An interactive activity.
Match each landform to how it forms 🧩
- Ox-bow lake
- Gorge
- Levee
- Delta
- A meander is cut off when its neck is breached
- Left behind as a waterfall retreats upstream
- Built from sediment dropped at the banks in floods
- Sediment deposited where a river meets the sea
In the field 🧭
An interactive activity.
Explain a landform ✍️
An interactive activity.
The grade-9 habit 🌟
Top answers **explain landforms as a sequence of processes**, not just a label. For a waterfall: hard rock over soft, the soft rock eroded by hydraulic action and abrasion, the overhang collapsing, and the fall retreating to leave a gorge. Always **link process to place** on the long profile: erosion and V-shaped valleys upstream, deposition and floodplains downstream. Sequence the processes, link them to the course - top band.