What is a River?

When you see fresh water that is flowing on the surface of the land, you have come across a river. Most rivers will flow all the way to the sea in a channel. The bottom of the channel is called the river bed, while the sides of the channel are the banks.

All rivers are different from each other, but there are some things that they all do. Water flows downhill, so all rivers flow downhill. All of the flowing water has energy. Think about your playground. When you go down the slide, you are sliding downhill, just like water in a river flows downhill!

Why doesn't the water dry up? That is because of the water cycle. The beginning of the water cycle is the rain. Rain falls on the ground. If runs downhill, sometimes with the help of the wind. It collects into rivers, which take the water to the sea. All the way along the sun dries the water up, turning it into water vapour in the air which in turn becomes clouds.  And then the clouds rain, and the whole cycle begins again! This is why the rivers do not run out of water.

Rivers are always changing. Some of these changes happen with the seasons. The river may be higher in spring than it is in summer. These changes are known as temporal changes. Temporal means the river is this deep for only a certain period of time - it changes with the season.

Other changes are called spatial changes. These are changes the happen along the banks and may change the way the river looks as well as how wide it is. The energy of the water can cause the banks to get farther and farther apart.

Sometimes changes will happen very quickly. It there is a lot of rain, the river will be deeper and can flow faster. People can change a river by making new channels for the river to flow along.

Rivers can change the landscape. They can change it by erosion. This is what happens when the water removes rocks, vegetation and soil from the banks and the bed. The flowing water moves the things that have eroded downstream. This is called transportation. When the energy of the water gets less and less, the material that it is moving will deposit the material. This is called deposition. The material it drops is called sediment.

Remember that water runs downhill.

1.      The rainfall drains off the land. This makes streams.

2.      The streams will form valleys or small gullies.

3.      The water in the streams has energy and this will carry the mud, pebbles and sand.

Rivers usually begin on a hill or a mountain. High on the hill, the water has a lot of energy. At the highest part of the hill you may find waterfalls or rapids. This is because the energy of the river flow will pull many rocks off the banks and the bed and they will roll along the bottom.

Streams will join together to make little rivers. The little rivers will flow together and make bigger rivers. As the river continues downhill, the water becomes a lot smoother. When it gets to this part, it will only carry sand or mud. You may see the river go from side to side at this part of the river.

When the river flows into the lower part of the land, the energy is lower. The river ends at the sea or sometimes at a lake.

Fun facts about rivers

The world's longest river is the Nile River which is around 6650 kilometers in length (4132 miles).

Britain’s longest river is the River Severn at 354 kilometers (220 miles).

The shortest river in the world is only 61 meters long! (200 feet). It's called the Roe River and flows between the Giant Springs and the Missouri River in Montana, USA. 

The widest river in the world is Rio de la Platagoes in South American, which at it's maximum width is 225 kilometers or 140 miles wide! 

Most of the major cities in the world are located near rivers (think of London and Paris!)

This is an original news article © The Kids Window

One in a series of articles about Geography written for children.

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