River Case Studies (Mekong)

1. Explain how a delta is formed. Include a fully labelled diagram or diagrams. (7M)
Answers are likely to refer to: River carries large amount of load; River slows/loses
strength/can’t carry sediment Flocculation, Deposition, Formation of
distributaries/new channels, Build up of new land, Colonization by vegetation, Lack
of strong currents etc

● When a river meets the sea its velocity suddenly reduces. This reduction in
velocity means that much of the rivers load is deposited at the mouth of the
river.
● If the river deposits quicker than the sea can erode then a delta starts to
develop.
● Deltas are depositional landforms that are created from the loading of
sediment onto the land as the rivers capacity to carry that sediment is
reduced. They are dynamic areas that change rapidly due to continual
recreation of land or the erosion of unstable island and land during storm
and flood events.
● Deposition can mean that the main river channel gets blocked, forcing the
water to find alternative routes to the sea by making distributaries.
● Deltas have very fertile soil and tend to be excellent for farming.

● There are three types of delta; arcuate, cuspate and bird's foot.

● Deltas are formed in the following way:

● 1. Rivers typically contain their highest sediment loads near their mouth,
where they meet seas and oceans. As the river enters a body of water its
velocity reduces.
● 2. At the mouth of the river, the flow of water becomes increasingly lateral.
This lateral movement of water reduces hydraulic radius and increases
wetted perimeter;
● 3. This causes sediment to be deposited, as does flocculation where clay
sediments join together, gain in mass and sink.
● 4. Over time sediment builds up. This can create small islands that split the
channel in the same was as braided streams;
● 5. This continues until the river splits as more islands form;

● 6. If sediment is fine-grained bird’s foot deltas can be created. If sediment

is coarse-grained arcuate deltas form.
● 7. Sediment is often deposited on the sea ward side, which builds the delta
outwards into the sea. These areas are called fore beds, and are highly
 unstable. They often collapse and cause mass movements within the sea
and clouds of sediment known as turbidity currents.
● (Picture on website)- https://www.coolgeography.co.uk/A-level/AQA/Year
%2012/Rivers_Floods/Landforms/Landforms.htm

2. For a named river you have studied, describe the benefits of living on or close to its
flood plain or delta. Name of river ...............................................................................
(7M)
Content Guide: Answers are likely to refer to: Fertile soils, Transport routes, Flat
land, Domestic water supply, Irrigation, Fishing, Jobs in tourism, Jobs in industry, etc.
Place specific reference is likely to consist of: Locational details, named places
alongside river/country name/area, etc.

● The Mekong river is the longest river in Southeast Asia and the 7th longest in
Asia. It has a length of about 2,700 miles.
● The river begins at the Qinghai province in China, flowing through Tibet and
forming part of the border between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. The river
continues to flow through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before draining into
the South China Sea, south of Ho Chi Minh City.
● The Mekong river drains more than 313,000 square miles of land.

● The Mekong River contributes significantly to this growth through the

opportunities it provides, including hydropower production, agriculture,
fisheries, and transport and trade.
● Living near the Mekong River has several benefits as it plays a crucial role in
the economies of LMB Countries (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). It
supports one of the world’s largest inland fisheries, which has a total
economic value estimated at US$17 billion – about three per cent of the
region’s combined gross domestic product.
● Fisheries are most economically important to Cambodia and Laos, where the
sector constitutes 18 and 12.8 per cent of the economy respectively.
Associated secondary industries, such as fish processing, markets, fuel and
equipment sales as well as boat building, contribute at least another US$3.6
to US$7.4 billion annually.
● Millions of subsistence fishing communities also depend on the waterway for
their survival.
● The river is also a source of irrigation for all four LMB countries

● The Mekong River has between 175 and 250 gigawatts of technically feasible
energy available for exploitation. Hydropower dams, if constructed, could
 provide massive economic stimulus for the region, producing energy, raising
national incomes, creating employment and lifting people out of poverty.
● Over 70 million people live within the LMB. Of the 12 million households
living in the region, 80 per cent depend directly on the river for their food
and livelihoods.
● The river plays a central part in the livelihoods of rural people and is an
important resource for food and water security.
● The Mekong region is Asia’s rice bowl: in 2014 lower Mekong countries
(Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam) produced more than
100m tonnes of rice, around 15% of the world’s total. The region’s fertile soil
depends on nutrient-rich sediment that the Mekong carries downriver,
mainly during the rainy season from June to October; more than half the
sediment in central Cambodia comes from China.
● The river and the nutrients it brings also support the world’s biggest inland
fishery, accounting for a quarter of the global freshwater catch, feeding tens
of millions of people.
● Due to its connectivity and geographical location, the Mekong river provides
as strong trading links and provides several transport routes especially for
tourists.
● The region also boasts remarkable diversity. There are more than 20,000
tyoes of plants, nearly2,500 animal species etc; making the area a tourist
hotspot as it provides connections to wildlife and nature.
● The area also encompasses various cultures (due to the migration of people
because of the presense of transport routes provided by the river) and this
also provides to be advantageous for tourists to visit the area.
● In its more gentle and lower stretches near Laos and Thailand, the Mekong’s
flat land is helpful for rice farmers and other industries related to fishing to
locate in these areas.

3. For a named river you have studied, describe the hazards and difficulties of living
close to it. Name of river .............................................
Comprehensive and accurate statements which describe the hazards/difficulties of
living close to a river including some place specific details. Content Guide: Answers
are likely to refer to: River erosion Marsh land Mosquitoes Difficulty of crossing river
Flooding and its issues such as: Transport problems Contaminated water Homes
destroyed Deaths etc. Place specific reference is likely to consist of: Locational
details, Named places alongside river, etc.
● Name of river- Mekong River

● The Mekong river is the longest river in Southeast Asia and the 7th longest in
Asia. It has a length of about 2,700 miles.
 ● The river begins at the Qinghai province in China, flowing through Tibet and
forming part of the border between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. The river
continues to flow through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before draining into
the South China Sea, south of Ho Chi Minh City.
● The Mekong river drains more than 313,000 square miles of land.

● Laos, Cambodia and Thailand are planning to build dams on the section of
rover that runs through their country. This will affect transport, river
fisheries, the water level and ultimately will displace a large number of
people that rely on the river for food and income.
● China has already built 7 dams and plans to build 21 more in the upper
reaches of the river. However this is controversial as it has increased the
salinity of the soil, causing a loss of fertility which has negative effects on crop
yield of the Mekong Delta.
● Furthermore, this has also caused a decline in fish as the river is blocked,
stopping fish from migrating. Creating a dam downstream will affect the
entire basin.
● The damn in Laos is being built by a Thai company with Thai money, and
almost all the electricity has been pre-sold to Thailand, hence Laos won’t
benefit from it
● The combination of climate change, sand-mining and incessant damning of
the river, combined to help cause the worse drought recorded in over 100
years in July 2021
● The water level in the Tonle Sap, Cambodia’s great inland lake, the “beating
heart of the Mekong,” was reduced to unprecedented shallow areas with one
floating village almost completely dried up. Many fish died because of the
shallow water, hot temperature, and toxic water resulting from lack of
oxygen. Around 2.5 million people who depend on the lake’s once abundant
fisheries have been directly affected.
● Millions will suffer if the river changes course, from a scarcity of fish and
protein deficiency until the fish stocks recover.
● activities such as flow regulation and the barriers effect caused by
hydropower, pollutants, and sediment extraction have degraded the habitat,
and increased the risk of extinction of fish.
● The increase in the amount of pollutants present in the Mekong River
contaminates the water making it undrinkable.

4. For a named river you have studied, explain the causes of flooding. Named
river........................................
Heavy rainfall, Rainfall over a long period of time, Impermeable rocks, Rocks reach
saturation level, Snow / ice melt, Deforestation, Urban development Storm surges
High spring tides Cyclones – so coastal flooding idea fine at estuary Lack of river
management Place specific reference is likely to consist of: Locational details, Named
places along the river / in the drainage basin, Statistics (can also be credited as PS)
e.g. rainfall amounts
● Name of river- confluence of River Valency and River Jordan

● In Aungust 2004, the village of Boscastle saw a month’s worth of rainfall in

two hours.
● It is located at the confluence of River Valency and River Jordan.

● The town of Boscastle is located in South East England, on the North coast of
Cornwall on the Bristol Channel.
● 200mm of rain fell over Ottersham Moor, east of the North coast of Cornwall
of Boscastle, in 4 hours.
● Over one thousand homes, cars and businesses were to be swept away and
damaged.
● The flood happened at high tide.

● The soils were quite thin and composed of impermeable peat soils which
became saturated very quickly, so rainfall became surface run off very
quickly.
● The rock in the local area is slate, which doesn’t allow percolation

● The steep sided converging valleys acted as funnels for the water rushing
through, funnelling all of the water through to Boscastle.
● In the days preceding the flood, the whole of the South West of England had
experienced stormy weather with heavy rainfall, so the ground was
saturated.
● On the 16th of August, there was heavy rain, 125mm had fallen in Boscastle
alone within a few hours.
● There were very few trees in the area to absorb and intercept the rainfall and
reduce the amount of surface run off.
● There was no flood control system in the village.

● The sewer and drainage system in Boscastle was old and had a very small
capacity.
● Deforestation on the valley sides and higher ground to make way for
agriculture meant there were fewer trees to intercept the rainwater and
absorb surface runoff.
 ● More buildings in the drainage basin mean more impermeable surfaces, so
rainfall and surface runoff flowed into the river much quicker.
● Some old bridges got blocked by flood debris, like cars, these acted as dams
and eventually when the water smashed through them, there were huge
surges of water as high as 5m.

5. Explain how an oxbow lake is formed. Include a diagram or series of diagrams.

Comprehensive and accurate which explain how an oxbow lake is formed, including
an accurate diagram or series of diagrams. Content Guide: Ideas such as: • Faster
flow on outer bends • Erosion on outer bends • Neck of meander narrows/meander
becomes more pronounced • Cuts through neck in time of flood; • Former meander
sealed by deposition

● Meandering rivers result in widening of the river valley and the production of Ox-
bow lakes. They are typical of the middle and lower course of a river where vertical
erosion is replaced by a sideways form of erosion called lateral erosion, plus
deposition within the floodplain.
● The sequence starts with a pool riffle sequence. First, even in straight channels the
river will deposit sediment in alternating bars that will eventually create riffles. This
will occur when there are low flows in the river, and the low hydraulic
radius (channel efficiency) is enough to encourage deposition. Once created, the
riffle will continue to lower the hydraulic radius for the area and water is seen to
flow even more inefficiently over it.
● Second, water needs to find a way around these areas of higher frictional contact so
it flows around them. This creates the variations in flow and introduces a side to
side motion to the water; this is effectively the start of meander
development. Between these shallow riffle are deeper areas called pools are
eroded, mainly at times of higher discharge, so a series of pools and riffles develop
over time.
● It is thought that during times of flood a corkscrew motion of water develops
between the pools called Helicoidal flow, which moves material from the outside of
one bank of a pool and moves it to the inside bend of the next pool. Next , at times
of higher flow the water will swing around one side of a riffle and this
will undercut the opposite bank through erosion processes because of centripetal
force (it is swung outwards).
● As the water enters the meander it is faster on its outside edge because it is deeper
(it has a larger hydraulic radius) so there is less friction acting upon the water.
● On the inside bend of the meander it is shallower (it has a smaller hydraulic radius)
so more friction from the rivers bed and bedload act upon the water, slowing it
down.
● On the outside of the bend a steep river cliff or bluff forms where the processes of
Hydraulic action and abrasion get to work eroding the outside of the bend.
● As the velocity slows on the inside of the bend critical deposition velocity is often
reached and deposition occurs. This creates a point bar or slip off slope.
● This Helicoidal flow of the river causes the river to move laterally across the flood
plain.
● If the meander neck gets really narrow it can eventually cut through, where the 2
outside edges of the meander edge closer together until the meander bed is cut
through during a period of high flow.
● The result is an abandoned ox bow lake, which will slowly fill with sediment and
aquatic plants. Reeds will invade and create soil and add vegetative matter, and
these processes will fill in the meander.
●

6. Describe the opportunities of living near a named river you have studied. Name of
river ..........................................
Content Guide: Answers are likely to refer to: Fertile soil High yields of crops Land is
flat so easy to build on Communications on land are easy along flood plain River can
sometimes be used for navigation Fishing/food supply Water supply Irrigation
Leisure HEP Industry Place specific reference is likely to consist of: Locational details,
named places close to the river etc.
● The Mekong river is the longest river in Southeast Asia and the 7th longest in
Asia. It has a length of about 2,700 miles.
● The river begins at the Qinghai province in China, flowing through Tibet and
forming part of the border between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. The river
continues to flow through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before draining into
the South China Sea, south of Ho Chi Minh City.
● The Mekong river drains more than 313,000 square miles of land.

● The Mekong River contributes significantly to this growth through the

opportunities it provides, including hydropower production, agriculture,
fisheries, and transport and trade.
● Living near the Mekong River has several benefits as it plays a crucial role in
the economies of LMB Countries (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). It
supports one of the world’s largest inland fisheries, which has a total
economic value estimated at US$17 billion – about three per cent of the
region’s combined gross domestic product.
● Fisheries are most economically important to Cambodia and Laos, where the
sector constitutes 18 and 12.8 per cent of the economy respectively.
Associated secondary industries, such as fish processing, markets, fuel and
equipment sales as well as boat building, contribute at least another US$3.6
to US$7.4 billion annually.
● Millions of subsistence fishing communities also depend on the waterway for
their survival.
● The river is also a source of irrigation for all four LMB countries

● The Mekong River has between 175 and 250 gigawatts of technically feasible
energy available for exploitation. Hydropower dams, if constructed, could
provide massive economic stimulus for the region, producing energy, raising
national incomes, creating employment and lifting people out of poverty.
● Over 70 million people live within the LMB. Of the 12 million households
living in the region, 80 per cent depend directly on the river for their food
and livelihoods.
● The river plays a central part in the livelihoods of rural people and is an
important resource for food and water security.
● The Mekong region is Asia’s rice bowl: in 2014 lower Mekong countries
(Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam) produced more than
100m tonnes of rice, around 15% of the world’s total. The region’s fertile soil
depends on nutrient-rich sediment that the Mekong carries downriver,
mainly during the rainy season from June to October; more than half the
sediment in central Cambodia comes from China.
● The river and the nutrients it brings also support the world’s biggest inland
fishery, accounting for a quarter of the global freshwater catch, feeding tens
of millions of people.
 ● Due to its connectivity and geographical location, the Mekong river provides
as strong trading links and provides several transport routes especially for
tourists.
● The region also boasts remarkable diversity. There are more than 20,000
tyoes of plants, nearly2,500 animal species etc; making the area a tourist
hotspot as it provides connections to wildlife and nature. The area also
encompasses various cultures (due to the migration of people because of the
presense of transport routes provided by the river) and this also provides to
be advantageous for tourists to visit the area.
● In its more gentle and lower stretches near Laos and Thailand, the Mekong’s
flat land is helpful for rice farmers and other industries related to fishing to
locate in these areas.

7. For a named river you have studied, describe what has been done to reduce the risk
of flooding. Name of river ..........................................
Level 3 (7 marks) Uses named example. Comprehensive and accurate statements
including some place specific reference. Content Guide: Answers are likely to refer
to: Dams/reservoirs Levees Overflow/flood relief channels Dredging, Afforestation,
Warnings, Evacuation plan, Flood gates etc. Place specific reference is likely to
consist of: Locational details, named places along the river or within its basin,
specific details of schemes etc.
● In August 2004, the village of Boscastle saw a month’s worth of rainfall in two
hours.
● It is located at the confluence of River Valency and River Jordan.

● The town of Boscastle is located in South East England, on the North coast of
Cornwall on the Bristol Channel.
● 200mm of rain fell over Ottersham Moor, east of Boscastle, in 4 hours.

● Over one thousand houses, cars and businesses were to be swept away and
damaged.
● To prevent this type of flood happening again, the environmental agency
invested 10 million pounds in several flood defences.
● Widening and deepening the river channel-this allowed the river to carry
more water.
● Removing low bridges and replacing them with wider bridges- this meant
large amounts of water could flow freely underneath the bridge and the
bridge wouldn’t act like a dam (in the 2004 flood, vegetation and debris
became blocked, creating the effect of a dam).
 ● Raising the car park and using a permeable surface- this allowed cars to be
much higher and so they were less likely to be swept away.
● Dead trees were removed to prevent them being swept away, causing
blockages under bridges.
● Land owners were encouraged to maintain vegetation and plant new trees.

● The authorities have actually spent 0.8 million pounds on widening and
lowering the river Valency.
● They’ve also put a relief channel underground which can take water away
from the river when there is a lot of rainfall.
● Inserted a tree catcher so trees cannot create dams downstream if washed
into the river.

8. Question- Write about the formation of waterfalls

Content Guide- Answers are likely to refer to: Hardness of rock, Undercutting, splashback,
formation of plunge pool, collapse of overhang, waterfall retreat/ gorge formation, process
repeats, erosion processes ex. Hydraulic action, abrasion etc.

Answer-
● Waterfalls are one of the landforms found in the upper valley, created by the erosion
process. It occurs where a river flows over different bands of rock.
● Waterfalls occur where a band of harder rock such as granite overlies or lies above a
softer rock such as sandstone.
● When the water flows down the hard rock, it doesn’t erode it as much as it does to
the softer rock below which also forms the bed and banks of the plunge pool.
● Erosion processes such as Hydraulic action (the force of the water) and Abrasion
(where the river rubs stones that are being transported against the bead of the river
hence breaking it down) dominate.
● The softer rock is eroded quicker by these processes than the harder rock and
gradually washes away downstream. This creates a plunge pool and the base of the
waterfall, where water swirls around. Potholing can occur here and any rocks and
debris swept into the plunge pool by the river will swirl around and rub against the
bed and banks of the plunge pool (corrasion), thus deepening it further.
● When water moves against the softer rocks, it erodes the sides of the waterfall as
well. This is called undercutting. Undercutting will occur due to splashback of water
when it hits the plunge pool.
● Over time the soft rock is eroded further creating an overhang of hard rock. This
overhand is unstable as there is no rock supporting its weight.
● Eventually, the hard rock collapses because of its weight and being unsupported, and
the waterfall retreats back upstream.
● This creates Gorges, which are steep sided deep river valleys. This process will repeat
continuously, and the location of the waterfall will gradually move upstream.