What causes point bars and cut banks to form? What will be an ideal response?


There is a general tendency for rivers and streams to form curved rather than straight channels. Once
channels become curved, the water current moving through them shifts from one side of the river to
the other in a regular and predictable way. For example, a passenger riding in a car following a curving
road will be alternately swayed from one side of the car toward the other and back again by inertia.
Similarly, water in a curving river channel will be shifted from one side of the channel to the other by
inertia, as the river changes direction. The net result of this is that the outboard sides of river bends
receive the lion's share of the energy as the river water gets shifted to that side. A consequence of this
is accelerated erosion in the form of a cut bank. On the inboard side, current energy is predictably
decreased. A consequence of this is deposition of sediment in the form of point bars

Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences

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