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Fluvial Environments

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Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition

Sedimentary environments are places on the Earth’s surface characterized by distinctive physical, chemical, and biological processes. Fluvial environments are a type of sedimentary environment, describing where fluvial landforms (geomorphology) and fluvial deposits (facies) are created, modified, destroyed, and/or preserved through the erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment.

Modesof fluvial sediment transport include bedload, suspended load, and dissolved load, and rivers are typically classified as bedload, mixed-load, or suspended load rivers based on the predominance of these modes. Dissolved load transport will not be discussed further in this section because it has a greater importance for water quality than for fluvial geomorphology and facies, with the exception of the importance of saline dissolved constituents in creating features and deposits in dryland environments. Most rivers also transport particulate and dissolved organic matter, and large woody...

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Correspondence to James E. Evans .

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Evans, J.E. (2018). Fluvial Environments. In: Bobrowsky, P.T., Marker, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73568-9_129

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