This document defines and describes various landforms created by water and erosion processes, including runoff, tributaries, watersheds, meanders, flood plains, deltas, water gaps, canyons, valleys, dunes, and landslides. It explains key terms like sediment, tributaries that feed into rivers, watershed areas, and landforms shaped by river currents, flooding, sediment deposition, and erosion from water and wind. The document provides definitions and brief descriptions of common landforms.

1. runoff
tributary
watershed
sediment
Chapter 7, meander
flood plain
Lesson 2 delta
Landforms water gap
canyon
valley
dune
landslide

2. runoff – water that runs off Earth’s
solid surface

3. tributary – “feeder” streams; small streams and rivers that
“feed” into other streams and rivers forming larger
streams and rivers

4. watershed – the entire area from
which water is drained

5. sediment – pieces of material; sediment can range
in size from boulders to gravel, sand, silt and
dissolved materials

6. meander – bends, or “S” shapes in a river cause by
river currents slowing down in flat land and
dropping sediment
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rivers and coasts!

7. flood plain – flat landscape near rivers; the rivers
flood the land from time to time and create very
fertile soil.

8. mouth (of river) – where a river empties into the
ocean; river currents slow when they hit the ocean
and drop sediment

9. delta – a fan-shaped piece of land that forms
from sediment dropped at the mouth of a river

10. water gap – a rare, narrow, steep-walled canyon
created as water cut through hard rock

11. valley – formed when small channels are
deepened and widened by erosion

12. canyon – a deep, V-shaped valley that is usually created
as a result of both water cutting into earth and
geological forces pushing earth upward

13. dune – sand hill created by wind erosion; found in
deserts or at the beach

14. landslide – when water saturates the land and
makes soil loosen and fall; gravity can create
landslides, too