Drainage Basins

What is Drainage Basins?

Within Geography, which covers maps, landforms, weather, climate, population and settlements: understand how our planet and people connect, this topic explains Drainage Basins. Geography explains how places, people and natural processes connect, so each topic here combines a clear definition with a visual model.

Check that you can explain Drainage Basins in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.

Understanding Drainage Basins helps you explain patterns on maps and in the news, and make reasoned decisions about places and environments.

Drainage Basins in detail

A drainage basin (river basin) is the area of land drained by a river and its tributaries. The watershed is the boundary of high land separating it from neighbouring basins, the source is where the river begins, a confluence is where two rivers meet and the mouth is where it enters the sea.

Water enters through precipitation and leaves through evaporation, transpiration and flow to the sea. Within the basin, water may be intercepted by plants, stored in puddles, infiltrate soil, flow as surface runoff or move through groundwater. Land use, rock type and slope affect how quickly water reaches the river.

How the interactive helps you understand Drainage Basins

Watch the cycle in the interactive. Use any sliders or buttons it offers to change the values and see how the cycle responds.

Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Drainage Basins.

Real-life uses and examples

• Describe a real place where Drainage Basins can be seen, using a map or photograph.
• Explain how Drainage Basins affects people, jobs and land use in a region.
• Support an answer about Drainage Basins with a named case study and specific evidence.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Writing general statements without a named place or example.
• Mixing up cause, effect and consequence when you explain Drainage Basins.
• Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.