IGCSE Geography / River environments

How rivers carry and drop their load

Edexcel International GCSE Geography (4GE1), chapter 1: River environments, specification point 1.2a. Part of the full course.

Read the revision notes · IGCSE Geography past papers

Rivers transport loose material in four ways, depending on the size of each piece. When a river loses energy, it can no longer carry all its load, so it deposits the heaviest material first.

More lessons in River environments

• The hydrological cycle: a closed system and its stores
• Transfers in the hydrological cycle
• Drainage basins and their features
• River regimes and what controls them
• Storm hydrographs
• How rivers erode
• Weathering and mass movement in river valleys
• Long profile and cross profiles
• How a river changes downstream
• V-shaped valleys, interlocking spurs and waterfalls
• Meanders and oxbow lakes
• Flood plains and levees
• Case study: the River Tay from source to mouth
• Water: uses, rising demand and supply
• Water quality and pollution
• Storing and supplying clean water
• Case study: river management in Spain
• Case study: river management in China
• Case study: managing the Blue Nile in Ethiopia
• Why rivers flood
• Predicting and preventing river floods
• River fieldwork: collecting the data
• River fieldwork: results, conclusions and evaluation