People building communities along a riverbank mistakenly assume that the shape of a meandering stream will remain fixed for a long time. In fact, in a natural meandering river system, the river channel migrates back and forth across the floodplain. View 1 illustrates the processes of erosion and deposition, and View 2 shows the evolution, in map view, of a meandering stream.

by Stephen Marshak

>>see: p.379