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Stream Bed

 
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A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream
Stream

A stream is a body of water less than 60 feet wide with a current , confined within a stream bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as brook, beck, Burn , creek, crick, kill, lick , rill, river syke, bayou, rivu...
, river
River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
 or creek; the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral confines or channel margins, during all but flood stage
Flood stage

Flood stage is the point at which the surface of a river, stream, or other body of water has risen to a sufficient level to cause damage or affects use of man-made structures....
, are known as the stream banks or river banks. In fact, a flood
Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land, a deluge. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide....
 occurs when a stream overflows its banks and flows onto its flood plain.






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Low Creek
A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream
Stream

A stream is a body of water less than 60 feet wide with a current , confined within a stream bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as brook, beck, Burn , creek, crick, kill, lick , rill, river syke, bayou, rivu...
, river
River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
 or creek; the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral confines or channel margins, during all but flood stage
Flood stage

Flood stage is the point at which the surface of a river, stream, or other body of water has risen to a sufficient level to cause damage or affects use of man-made structures....
, are known as the stream banks or river banks. In fact, a flood
Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land, a deluge. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide....
 occurs when a stream overflows its banks and flows onto its flood plain. As a general rule, the bed is that part of the channel
Channel (geography)

In physical geography, a channel is the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean strait consisting of a bed and banks.A channel is also the natural or man-made deeper course through a reef, bar , bay, or any shallow body of water....
, just at the "normal" water line and the banks are that part above the water line. However, because water flow varies, this differentiation is subject to local interpretation. Usually, the bed is kept clear of terrestrial vegetation, whereas the banks are subjected to water flow only during unusual or perhaps infrequent high water stages and therefore, might support vegetation some or much of the time.

The descriptive terms, 'right bank' and 'left bank', always apply from the perspective of looking downstream, in the direction the current is going.

The nature of any stream bed is always a function of the flow dynamics and the local geologic materials, influenced by that flow. With small streams in mesophytic
Mesophyte

Mesophytes are terrestrial plants which are adapted to neither a particularly dry nor particularly wet environment. An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow, which might contain Solidago, Trifolium, Leucanthemum vulgare, and Rosa multiflora....
 regions, the nature of the stream bed is strongly responsive to conditions of precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)

File:MeanMonthlyP.gifIn meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of Atmosphere water vapor that is deposited on the earth's surface....
 runoff
Surface runoff

Surface runoff is the water flow which occurs when soil is infiltrated to full capacity and excess water, from rain, snowmelt, or other sources flows over the land....
. Where natural conditions of either grassland
Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found....
 or forest
Forest

File:Stara planina suma.jpgA forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on various criteria....
 ameliorate peak flows, streambeds are stable, possibly rich, with organic matter and exhibit minimal scour. These streams support a rich biota. Where conditions produce unnatural levels of runoff, such as occurs below roads, the streambeds will exhibit a greater amount of scour, often down to bedrock and banks may be undercut. This process greatly increases watershed erosion and results in thinner soils, upslope from the stream bed, as the channel adjusts to the increase in flow.

See also

  • Armor (hydrology)
    Armor (hydrology)

    Armor, in hydrology and geography is the association of surface pebbles, rocks or boulders with stream beds or beaches. Most commonly hydrology armor occurs naturally; however, a man-made form is usually called riprap, when shorelines or stream banks are fortified for erosion protection with large boulders or sizable manufactured concrete ob...
  • Benthic zone
    Benthic zone

    The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean or a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers....
  • Hyporheic zone