drainage pattern

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…

…(one-seventh) of the total continental drainage enters the Pacific—a total drainage area of less than about three times the total area of Australia. Of the rivers that drain into the Pacific, those of China and Southeast Asia are of the greatest importance; the basins of those rivers support more than…

…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.…

This indicates that sizable fluvial activity tends to block the entrance of seawater into the estuary environment.

Both habitats are linked into drainage systems of three major sorts: exorheic, endorheic, and arheic. Exorheic regions are open systems in which surface waters ultimately drain to the ocean in well-defined patterns that involve streams and rivers temporarily impounded by permanent freshwater lakes. Endorheic regions are considered closed systems because,…

…the continuous permafrost zone surface, drainage follows the troughs of the polygons (tops of the ice wedges). At ice wedge junctions or elsewhere, melting may occur to form small pools. The joining of these small pools by a stream causes the pools to resemble beads on a string, a type…

…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…

…the Mississippi River constitutes its drainage basin, whereas that part of the Mississippi River drained by the Ohio River is the Ohio’s drainage basin. The boundary between drainage basins is a drainage divide: all the precipitation on opposite sides of a drainage divide will flow into different drainage basins.