Rivers - Source to Mouth

Having understood the basics of a Drainage Basin we now need to consider the journey that a river within a Drainage Basin takes from its beginning to its end. The path the river follows from its source to mouth is known as the river's course. When studying rivers we often divide it into 3 main sections, the upper course; middle course and lower course. Each part of the river has distinctive features which form and the characteristics of the river and its surrounding valley change downstream (click on the diagram to see the main changes)

The photographs on this site show some examples of how the landscape changes along the course of a river.