Holford Comb River Investigation

Stretches of a river can be different in terms of their processes and landforms.

Introduction:

My investigation is a study of hydrology, as I want to find out how and why a rivers channel, flow and valley characteristics change as you move downstream from its upper course to its mouth. These changes are represented in the Bradshaw Model (fig 1), a fluvial model that describes changes in the river channel and flow characteristics between different courses along the river. Based on three factors, it is possible to infer information about the processes of river erosion, transportation and deposition that occurs along the river. I will use the Bradshaw Model to compare the river at Holford Combe with the characteristics that you would expect to happen and what impact these characteristics have on the formation of landforms along the course of the
Also you can get a better overview of the general trends in a rivers processes and landforms over its full course. We can be more certain of our conclusions about the pattern along the Holford Combe River and how closely they relate to the Bradshaw Model (fig 1). The length is very important because we were only aloud two days outside of school lessons to complete the data collection. The being short meant we were able to walk the length of the river from source to mouth and not waste time from travelling to different sites. It’s a good site choice from a health and safety perspective (fig 6) as the river is not to wide or deep and being short as well. Also erosional processes haven’t had much time to act against the river channel, to make sure it didn’t make it dangerously deep or wide. The river was very accessible to us from school (only 47 miles, South west of Bristol), so it was very easy to get to and realistic and cost effective for the site