Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
← Geography
GeographyRivers and coasts30 min★★ difficulty

Rivers: processes and landforms

A river is a machine for moving water and sediment downhill. Once you know its four processes you can explain almost every landform in a valley — and answer the classic exam question on how a waterfall forms.

Part of your national curriculum
  • Human and physical geography: Understand rivers, coasts and glaciation and the physical processes that give rise to landscapes, and how they change over time

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Understand rivers, coasts and glaciation and the physical processes that give rise to landscapes, and how they change over time

Key learning points

  • • Energy, load and gradient
  • • Carrying and dropping the load
  • • Upper and middle course
  • • Lower course and floods

This lesson at a glance

  • 30 minutes
  • 18 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

riverscoastsglaciationphysicalprocesses

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 18 · Discover6%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 18

Watch first

Rivers: processes and landforms

An English teaching video on this topic from iNewittAll. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Understand rivers, coasts and glaciation and the physical processes that give rise to landscapes, and how they change over time

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 18

Before we start

What you already know

You should know that water flows downhill and that rocks vary in hardness.

3

Key words

Part 3 of 18

Key words

Words you'll need today

Erosion
The wearing away and removal of rock and soil by moving water.
Transportation
Carrying sediment by traction, saltation, suspension or solution.
Deposition
Dropping sediment when the river loses energy.
Meander
A bend in a river, eroding on the outside and depositing on the inside.
Floodplain
The flat valley floor covered by water and silt when a river floods.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 18

Learning cycle 1 of 2

The four processes

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 18

Learn

Energy, load and gradient

A river's work depends on its energy, which comes from the volume of water and the steepness of the channel. High energy means erosion and transport; low energy means deposition. Erosion happens four ways: hydraulic action, where water forces itself into cracks; abrasion, where the load scrapes the bed; attrition, where stones knock each other smoother; and solution, where minerals dissolve.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 18

Learn

Carrying and dropping the load

The river transports material by rolling it along the bed (traction), bouncing it (saltation), holding fine particles in the flow (suspension) and dissolving minerals (solution). As the river slows — at a bend, in a flood, or where it meets the sea — it can no longer hold the load, so the heaviest material is dropped first and the finest travels furthest.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 18

Quick check

Water forcing itself into cracks in the bank is…

8

Reset break

Part 8 of 18

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
9

Quick check

Part 9 of 18

Quick check

Fine particles carried within the flow are being moved by…

10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 18

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Landforms from source to mouth

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 18

Learn

Upper and middle course

In the upper course, vertical erosion cuts a steep V-shaped valley with interlocking spurs. Where a band of hard rock lies over softer rock, the softer rock is undercut, a plunge pool deepens, the hard rock overhangs and collapses, and the waterfall retreats upstream leaving a gorge. In the middle course, lateral erosion widens the channel: the outside of a bend erodes into a river cliff while the inside deposits a slip-off slope, so meanders migrate.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 18

Learn

Lower course and floods

In the lower course the river is wide, slow and heavily loaded. Meanders may be cut off to leave oxbow lakes, and floods spread silt across the floodplain, building levées along the banks. That silt is why floodplains are farmed and built on — which is exactly why flooding causes so much damage. Hard engineering such as embankments and soft approaches such as tree planting or floodplain restoration manage the risk in different ways.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 18

Quick check

Which landform forms on the outside of a meander?

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 18

Quick check

A waterfall retreating upstream leaves a…

15

Common mix-ups

Part 15 of 18

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Rivers erode most at the mouth — vertical erosion is strongest upstream; the lower course mainly deposits.
  • A waterfall moves downstream — undercutting and collapse make it retreat upstream, forming a gorge.
  • Meanders stay still — they migrate across the floodplain and can be cut off as oxbow lakes.
16

Challenge round

Part 16 of 18

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

17

Mastery quiz

Part 17 of 18

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Rivers: processes and landforms

6 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Attrition makes the load…

  2. 2. A V-shaped valley is formed mainly by…

  3. 3. An oxbow lake forms when…

  4. 4. Levées are built up by…

  5. 5. Which is soft engineering for flood risk?

  6. 6. Why are floodplains often densely settled?

18

Lesson round-up

Part 18 of 18

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
  2. Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
  3. Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

  • Case study notes

    Writing

    Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.

    Half a page

  • Explain answer

    Writing

    Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.

    8–10 sentences

  • Map or sketch

    Diagram

    Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.

    1 map with a key

  • Data work

    Working out

    Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.

    1 graph + 1 sentence

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 18 · Watch & discover

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    Understand rivers, coasts and glaciation and the physical processes that give rise to landscapes, and how they change over time

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