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A river basin, a major ecological term, is an area of land where precipitation accumulates and flows into a river. In simpler terms, when it rains, the water doesn’t just disappear into the ground. Instead, it slips and slides always downhill, eventually forming streams and feeding into a river.
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What is a river basin?
Is a river basin a watershed?
What is an example of a drainage basin?
Is a river basin an ecosystem?
When looking at the location of rivers and the amount of streamflow in rivers, the key concept is the river's "watershed". What is a watershed? Easy, if you are standing on ground right now, just look down.
What is a river basin? A river basin is an area of land drained by a river and its tributaries. River basins have typical features, these include: Tributary – a smaller river or stream flowing into a larger river. A confluence – where a river joins another river.
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A basin is a depression, or dip, in the Earths surface. Basins are shaped like bowls, with sides higher than the bottom. They can be oval or circular in shape, similar to a sink or tub you might have in your own bathroom. Some are filled with water. Others are empty.
Basins are formed by forces above the ground (like erosion) or below the ground (like earthquakes). They can be created over thousands of years or almost overnight. Structural basins are formed by tectonic activity. Tectonic activity is the movement of large pieces of the Earths crust, called tectonic plates. Tectonic activity is responsible for su...
A river drainage basin is an area drained by a river and all of its tributaries. A river basin is made up of many different watersheds. A watershed is a small version of a river basin. Every stream and tributary has its own watershed, which drains to a larger stream or wetland. These streams, ponds, wetlands, and lakes are part of a river basin. Th...
Every river is part of a network of watersheds that make up a river systems entire drainage basin. All the water in the drainage basin flows downhill toward bigger rivers. The Pease River, in northern Texas, is part of the Arkansas-Red-White watershed. It is a tributary of the Red River. The Red River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River, ...
The Amazon Basin, in northern South America, is the largest in the world. The Amazon River and all of its tributaries drain an area more than 7 million square kilometers (about 3 million square miles).
A lake basin is another type of structural basin. Lake basins often form in valleys blocked by rocks or other debris left by a landslide, lava flow, or glacier. The debris acts as a dam, trapping water and forming a lake. Hunza Lake in Pakistan was formed when an earthquake triggered a massive landslide in 2010. The debris dammed the Hunza River, i...
The Niger Delta sedimentary basin, in the countries of Nigeria, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, is one of the most productive petroleum fields in Africa. In North America, the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is one of the continent's largest suppliers of gas and coal.
Ocean basins are the largest depressions on Earth. Edges of the continents, called continental shelves, form the sides of ocean basins.
There are five major ocean basins, coordinating with the major oceans of the world: the Pacific basin, the Atlantic basin, the Indian basin, the Arctic basin, and the Southern basin. Many smaller basins are often considered oceanic basins, such as the North Aleutian Basin, between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.
Even though ocean basins make up more than 70 percent of the total land on Earth, scientists know relatively little about them. Some oceanographers (and some astronomers!) say that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the surface of the ocean floor.
Jul 19, 2024 · A watershed is an entire river system—an area drained by a river and its tributaries. It is sometimes called a drainage basin.
A river basin is the portion of land drained by a river and its tributaries. It encompasses all of the land surface dissected and drained by many streams and creeks that flow downhill into one another, and eventually into the Milwaukee River.
Jul 17, 2024 · drainage basin, area from which all precipitation flows to a single stream or set of streams. For example, the total area drained by 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.
