To What Extent Are Floods Necessary For The Formation Of River Landforms

To what extent are floods necessary for the formation of river landforms?

River landforms are formed by either depositional methods or erosional methods, and the landforms that floods are necessary for are formed by depositional methods, but there are landforms that are formed by erosional methods where floods are not needed to create these landforms. The main landforms that are formed by floods are levees, floodplains and oxbow lakes. The most obvious example of a landform where flooding is necessary is a floodplain, as the fundamental part of a floodplain is that is formed when a river floods and spills onto the adjacent land and deposit the sediment, and if the river didn’t exceed it capacity to contain the water there
Another landform where floods help with the formation is levees where the sediment is dropped closer to the river channel during a flood and goes to the edges which creates levees to help prevent against flooding in the future, the flood is important as without the higher discharge associated with the floods the material would just be deposited on the rivers bed meaning it would become heightened and therefore it would increase the frequency and volume of water of floods.
A landform where flooding is not required for the formation is a meander, this is to do with the river trying to take the path with the least resistance and occurs inside the rivers channel so does not require flooding to create them, yet despite this when there is high discharge it increases the rate of erosion and the meander is created quicker and creates centripetal force towards the banks which causes undercutting to create the outer concave