Geography Indian Physical 3 · Section 1

Y ou have observed water flowing through the rivers, nalas and even channels during rainy season which drain the excess water. Had these channels not been there, large-scale flooding would have occurred. Wherever channels are ill-defined or choked, flooding is a common phenomenon. The flow of water through well-defined channels is known as ‘drainage’ and the network of such channels is called a ‘drainage system’.

The drainage pattern of an area is the outcome of the geological time period, nature and structure of rocks, topography, slope, amount of water flowing and the periodicity of the flow. Do you have a river near your village or city? Have you ever been there for boating or bathing? Is it perennial (always with water) or ephemeral (water during rainy season, and dry, otherwise)?

Do you know that rivers flow in the same direction? You have studied about slopes in the other two textbooks of geography (NCERT, ) in this class . Can you, then, explain the reason for water flowing from one direction to the other? Why do the rivers originating from the Himalayas in the northern India and the Western Ghat in the southern India flow towards the east and discharge their waters in the Bay of Bengal?

A river drains the water collected from a specific area, which is called its ‘catchment area’. An area drained by a river and its tributaries is called a drainage basin. The boundary line C H A P T E R Important Drainage Patterns The drainage pattern resembling the branches of a tree is known as “dendritic” the examples of which are the rivers of northern plain. When the rivers originate from a hill and flow in all directions, the drainage pattern is known as ‘radial’.

The rivers originating from the Amarkantak range present a good example of it. (iii) When the primary tributaries of rivers flow parallel to each other and secondary tributaries join them at right angles, the pattern is known as ‘trellis’. (iv) When the rivers discharge their waters from all directions in a lake or depression, the pattern is know as ‘centripetal’. Find out some of the patterns in the topo sheet given in Chapter of Practical Work in Geography– Part I (NCERT, ).

Figure . : A River in the Mountainous Region