KAY'S 'AS' PAGE has a very useful page of links relevant to this topic, which would make a good starting point for reading and researching. Recommended.
The WATER BALANCE EQUATION is key to the idea of river energy usage. P = R + E +/- S or rearrange some of the terms slightly. Can also substitute Q for runoff, as this letter represents river discharge, or use a delta to represent the change in storage over time.
A series of lessons on rivers is available from the Canadian University of Regina. They have lessons on RUNOFF, HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE, PRECIPITATION, and links to lots of other relevant sets of notes. I recommend that you have a read through some of these. You can obviously ignore some of the Canadian references, but the notes are still useful, and it will help to familiarise you with the terms of the global and drainage basin hydrological cycle.
A recent addition to the Suffolk Slamnet site has been aerial photographs which follow 3 Suffolk rivers from source to mouth: the Deben, Gipping & Orwell and the Waveney. Go here for the PHOTOPACK.
Try the THINKQUEST: ALL ALONG A RIVER resource.
One of the developing sites on Rivers, and one which was featured in an article in 'Teaching Geography' in July 2001 is RIVERSWEB at St. Mary's College. This has the potential to be an excellent resource but at the moment, there are just a few good resources there. Recommended.
The Severn Bore is an interesting river phenomenon, and has its own WEBSITE of course.
River REGIMES are an important concept. They explain the pattern of flow of rivers over the course of a year or more. Some rivers have simple regimes. This means that there is a fairly simple pattern of flow related to the source of the river. For example, a river fed from a glacier would have a greater flow in the summer following the nival flood, with a much lower or almost zero flow related to the freezing up in the winter months. Some have more complex regimes as they are fed from a range of sources. The website RIVDIS has statistics on River Discharge for many of the world's major rivers.
UNEP has a useful VITAL WATER site. Some excellent images.
Visit the ENVIRONMENT AGENCY site for downloadable exercises, including a very involved decision making exercise based on the River Arun in Surrey. This takes a little preparation and time to carry out, but may be valuable for some syllabuses. The Environment Agency page undergoes frequent updates which makes it hard to find things sometimes. Now has live flood warnings. Or you can ring the Floodline number: 0845 988 1188. This can withstand 1 million hits a day - test it out on a wet Wednesday...
The Floodline number now seems to appear on the weather forecast with increasing regularity.
They also offer online flood warnings. I remember doing a 'virtual' flood managing exercise at Huddersfield, with messages flashing up on a BBC computer. It should be possible to update this a little with a bit of effort. Can also enter your postcode and get a flood risk map for the area containing your house - mine is just on the edge of a slight river flooding problem: a stream which flows into the River Ingol goes at the bottom of the garden. The level hasn't gone above 3 inches in the 4 years I've lived in my house, but one day I may wake up to find the bed floating down the street. There has been some new building in the area which will have affected the contributory area for rainfall.
The Government agency which is responsible for flooding is DEFRA. This has also recently undergone name changes and website is being re-organised. I requested some articles sometime ago and nothing as yet.
An Environment Agency presentation on FLOOD DEFENCE planning HERE.
Flooding may be made worse by GLOBAL WARMING: one of the areas being investigated by the Tyndall Centre at UEA. Sometimes questions can link the 2 topics, particularly in the synoptic unit. Sea level change threatens millions of people around the world.
An excellent site at the SOUTH WEST GRID for Learning. Their rivers project has a comprehensive study of all aspects of rivers and their usage and some very nice images. See the BOOTHAM school links above as well. Well worth investigating their other lectures too.
Useful piece of software released in Autumn 2003 is the 'River Studies' CD ROM by Focus on Geography - goes through the main skills involved in river fieldwork... one feature I like is the BEDLOAD SAMPLING model, which has 3D pebbles that you can manipulate and measure as required. A nice feature. Also has VIDEO CLIPS of some of the main sampling methods.
YORK is a city which is very prone to flooding due to the layout of rivers which feed into the Ouse just North of the city. A map of the river network would make it obvious that there is a likelihood of problems, especially as the city lies on such low-lying land in the Vale of York (find a map of York and look for the contour lines...)
See the YORK page for more details.
Hydrographs are a key skill and important area of hydrology. A likely question relates to the processes which change the shape of the hydrograph: most of these are related to characteristics of the drainage basin or catchment area.
An aside is the diagram HERE, which is one of my favourite bits of Geography... it shows how Delta and Vicksburg: 2 settlements on the Mississippi swapped places when the meanders were cut through... only in America... (as far as I know)
Check out MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY's DARK PEAK fieldwork page for a VIRTUAL TOUR and all sorts of resources on peat erosion, water quality etc. A good resource. Check out the THEMES section for even more useful information.
Doing the WJEC Spec ? Head over to THIS SITE which has some rather good resources for Hydrology and also for Personal enquiries. There is also a section of useful data. Lots of stuff on the River Taff.
To find out the details of a range
of UK rivers, you need to go to the 
This is
available at the pages of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH
Wallingford)
http://www.nwl.ac.uk/ih/www/index.html is a direct link to the page. This allows you to explore the drainage basins and flows of many rivers in the UK.
Head over to the WYCOMBE HIGH SCHOOL site for some illustrated notes. These will be ideal for revision purposes.
A stream channel is an open funnel along which water and sediment are transferred.
All natural streams have sinuous planforms: either meandering or braided or straight.
The total load a stream is capable of carrying at any specific discharge is called the CAPACITY.
The maximum size/weight of individual particles (CALIBRE) that can be entrained is known as the stream COMPETENCE.
Shape and dimensions of a river channel are influenced by a number of factors: volume and velocity of water, quantity and calibre of sediment load and materials which make up the bed and banks of the channel
The ideal shape is semi-circular or trapezoidal.
Shape of channel can be expressed by the FORM RATIO
Form Ratio = d / w (d = channel depth, w = channel width)
Recurrence interval for most rivers for bankfull discharge is around 1.5 years.
Our 'AS' students will hopefully be going on a trip up to the Peak District in 2006 to do some fieldwork which will involve a river study. The plan is to investigate the River Noe in Edale, although another good location is the River Derwent at Grindsbrook which is close to the Ladybower reservoir.
This is the focus of a PowerPoint presentation which is available to download from the ASHBY GRAMMAR website. A good effort with some striking images of Grindsbrook which I've visited too many times to mention, and of Hollins Cross and the view over the Hope Valley towards Castleton and the Blue Circle cement works.
Hopefully my colleagues will supply further content for this section of the site on their return from the fieldwork.
INFILTRATION
Start with a raindrop falling out of the sky...
Where could it go ? What are the possibilities ? Try to account for all the different pathways, and produce a diagram to summarise them.
A key process is INFILTRATION. This is shown on the PHILIP CURVE, which shows that infiltration starts off at a high level, but then slows down over time. This is because, as the rain falls there is a process called SURFACE SEALING, which starts to move the finer particles into the gaps between the interstices (pore spaces) - this results from the breaking up of aggregates by raindrop impact. Surface pores are filled by fine particles and this has the same effect as blocking the turnstiles into a football ground. 'Queues of water' build up, and run down any slopes.
Water can also concentrate in depression storage, otherwise known as a puddle.
Q. How do you know it's been raining cats and dogs ?
A: Because you step in a poodle
The Infiltration Capacity of a given soil depends on a series of factors, which include:
Precipitation: type, intensity, duration
Soil surface conditions / vegetation cover and type
Temperature
Height of water table relative to the surface
Porosity, permeability, grain size, moisture content & hydraulic conductivity (K)
If infiltration capacity is exceeded, water flows over the surface (infiltration excess)
If the water table is at the surface (saturation excess)
