OES 302 Summer 2022 Lab 2-1

Streams and Rivers

Water is a powerful force of erosion. Give it enough time and it will reduce mountains or
carve great canyons. Water moving across the surface of the earth – in the form of streams and
rivers – provides drinking water and serves agricultural and industry needs, or can lead to
disastrous floods modifying the landscape and destroying human infrastructure (e.g., buildings,
roads). Streams are dynamic landscape features continuously adjusting to watershed scale
changes in discharge and sediment load. Driven largely by storm events, these adjustments
contribute (e.g. aggradation) or erode (e.g. degradation) sediment and associated pollutants from
the stream channel while attempting to return to dynamic equilibrium.

Learning Goal - This lab focuses on how streams and rivers adjust to changing environmental
and climatic conditions over time by eroding and depositing sediments along the stream channel.
Using Google Earth, you will identify stream features, and processes discussed in lecture 7 (OES
302 Module 7-Rivers Spring 2021.pptx).

Figure 1Rivers transport sediment from their tributaries, to the ocean where the sediment is
ultimately deposited in the floodplains and ocean.

Partially modified from Leslie A. Morrissey (UVM)

 OES 302 Spring 2022 Lab 2-2

Tributaries of the Mississippi River System. Try to locate the Red River and the
Figure 2
Atchafalaya River on the map above. Hint: look in northern Texas and Louisiana.

Study Area:
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in the United States. Its drainage basin is
composed of many smaller tributaries and drains a large portion of the United States. In this lab
you will examine the landforms of one of the larger Mississippi tributaries, the Red River. You
will first photo interpret the fluvial landforms in the Red River at the Oklahoma and Texas
border. Then choose you will your own river to photo interpret.
Please use module lecture 7 as a reference for this lab. A helpful textbook reading for this lab is
Channel and Floodplain Evolution. Found in Chapter 6: Streams and Flooding, heading: Streams
and Their Features.
 OES 302 Spring 2022 Lab 2-3

A. Tributary Landforms

This is an image of the Red River from 2019. It forms the boundary between the states of
Figure 3
Texas and Oklahoma. In 2020, a meander cutoff formed where the red arrow is. Compare your
Google Earth view (2020) to this figure (2019).

1. Enter the following coordinates to view the image above: 33.657612, -94.553215. Zoom out
until your view is at an altitude of ~10 km. Zooming in/out as needed, locate the following
features and label each with the Placemark tool (looks like a yellow push-pin). List the
coordinates for each. Save completed image (File SaveSave Image, and save as a .jpg)
and insert the .jpg into the document for the instructor.

A tutorial for adding placemarks to Google Earth can be found here:

https://support.google.com/earth/answer/148142?hl=en

a. Flood Plain
b. Meander
c. Stream/River
d. Oxbow Lake
e. Cut Bank
f. Point Bar
 OES 302 Spring 2022 Lab 2-4

Now that you are more familiar with the river and channel features of the Red River, answer the
following questions based on your assessment of the imagery.

2. Most of the time river channels migrate slowly, however sometimes big changes occur
quickly. At this location last year, the river jumped its banks and made a new channel. This
formed a meander cutoff, which is when a river in a high sinuosity meander bend cuts through to
create a straighter course. Use the historical imagery tool to see how the river’s course has
changed through time. Then focus on the most recent images before and after the meander cutoff
formed. If you do not see the historical imagery tool check to make sure that ‘Historical
Imagery’ is checked under the ‘View’ tab.

2a. Locate the resulting meander cutoff with a placemark, save image and upload to
document.

2b. Explain figure 4 below. (Note: the blue arrows represent the thalweg.)

Figure 4.

2c. How does figure 4 relate to the meander cutoff you located on the Red River? Which
image above most closely matches the most recent satellite imagery of the meander
cutoff?

2d. Using figure 4, what is the name of the feature that the soon-to-be-abandoned channel
will turn into?

2e. What river discharge conditions (high river flow vs low river flow) do you think
caused this cut off to occur? Why? (i.e., why did the river water jump its banks).
 OES 302 Spring 2022 Lab 2-5

Figure 5

3. Sinuosity is a measure of how curvy the river is (defined as stream length/straight line length)
and inversely reflects the power of the stream (e.g., less power = more sinuous). Based on figure
5 above, describe the sinuosity of this area using low, moderate, and high sinuosity.

Bank erosion is often greatest when the stream is incised, i.e., stream banks are vertical, and
lowest when the bank heights are low.

4. Would it be better to build a house on the inside or outside of a stream meander? Why?

5. Why does a point bar form only on the inside of a stream meander curve?

6. Locate another river of your choice in Google Earth and use the ‘Placemark’ tool to identify at
least 5 of the aforementioned stream features. Save and insert the image into the document
when you are done making sure to note which river it is and the coordinates of each
placemark.