IGCSE Geography / River environments

Water quality and pollution

Edexcel International GCSE Geography (4GE1), chapter 1: River environments, specification point 1.3b. Part of the full course.

Read the revision notes · IGCSE Geography past papers

River water quality is how clean and safe the water is. Sewage, industry and agriculture can lower it, while differences in treatment, laws and money help explain why water quality varies between countries.

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
• How rivers carry and drop their load
• 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
• 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