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Article: Stream and River
- Article from:
- UXL Encyclopedia of Landforms and Other Geologic Features
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Stream and river
Flowing
water, in streams and rivers or across the land in sheets, is the dominant erosional process in shaping Earth's landscape. Streams and rivers are not merely systems for moving surface water to the world's oceans and seas. They are also systems for moving weathered rocks and other sediment to those large bodies of water. In fact, it is estimated that streams and rivers move about 1.65 billion tons (1.5 billion metric tons) of sediment from land to the oceans each year. By shifting such great masses of sediment, streams and rivers become sculptors of the land.
Streams and rivers erode, transport sediment, change course, and flood their banks in natural and ...