{"id":20877,"date":"2024-02-25T10:49:06","date_gmt":"2024-02-25T05:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=20877"},"modified":"2025-04-06T08:16:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T02:46:30","slug":"floodplain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/floodplain\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Floodplain?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Floodplain<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A floodplain is a generally\u00a0flat area of land next to a river or stream.<\/li>\n<li>It is composed of unconsolidated sedimentary deposits (alluvium) and is subject to\u00a0periodic inundation by the stream.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0stretches from\u00a0the banks of the river to the outer edges of the valley.<\/li>\n<li>A floodplain\u00a0consists of two parts.\n<ul>\n<li>The first is the\u00a0main channel of the river itself,\u00a0called the floodway.\u00a0Floodways can\u00a0sometimes be seasonal, meaning the channel is dry for part of the year.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Beyond the floodway is the flood fringe.\u00a0It is the land between the banks of\u00a0the\u00a0floodway and the valley wall, or anywhere the valley land starts to rise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>How do floodplains form?\u00a0Floodplains develop in two common ways:\u00a0erosion and deposition (also known as\u00a0aggradation).\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>When rivers start to meander, curving from side to side, the water erodes the banks\u00a0of the river and\u00a0creates a wide, flat area around the sides.<\/li>\n<li>When the river floods, either because of heavy rainfall or ice melting upstream,\u00a0it floods its banks.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0water that moves\u00a0out\u00a0of the\u00a0floodway and into the fringes\u00a0loses the force that was\u00a0carrying much of the sediment acquired from erosion upstream\u00a0and deposits it on the surrounding land.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0portions of the river that have been\u00a0consistently flooded will\u00a0naturally start to build a bank up again.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>As sediment is deposited over time, most of it is\u00a0deposited where the land\u00a0elevates out of the river bed and\u00a0creates a bank where one had previously eroded.<\/li>\n<li>These\u00a0deposits flanking the river are called fluvial terraces and can tell geologists a lot about where floodplains used to be before the banks built up.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Floodplains are absent where downcutting of rivers is dominant.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Importance:\n<ul>\n<li>The deposition of sediment that happens in floodplains can be the source of major\u00a0fertility.<\/li>\n<li>This\u00a0sediment is usually built up of\u00a0alluvium, or silt,\u00a0which is considered some of the\u00a0richest soil, containing nutrients like potash, phosphoric acid, and lime.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are sedimentary deposits?<\/h3>\n<p>Sedimentary deposits are mineral deposits that are formed through the accumulation of sediments on or near the Earth&#8217;s surface. These deposits can contain a variety of minerals, including metal ores, coal, and industrial minerals such as limestone, salt, and gypsum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/city\/delhi\/committee-plans-to-define-river-floodplain-by-april-18\/articleshow\/107956713.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Committee plans to define river floodplain by April 18\u00a0<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Floodplain is a generally flat area of land next to a river or stream. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}