Bank (geography)

Common card · No. 365401

In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as "banks" in different fields of geography. In limnology, a "stream bank" or "river bank" is the terrain alongside the bed of a river, creek, or stream. The bank consists of the sides of the channel, backwater between which the flow is confined. Stream banks are of particular interest in fluvial geography, which studies the processes associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. Bankfull discharge is a discharge great enough to fill the channel and overtop the banks. The descriptive terms left bank and right bank refer to the perspective of an observer looking downstream; a well-known example of this being the southern left bank and the northern right bank of the river Seine defining parts of Paris. The shoreline of ponds, swamps, estuaries, reservoirs, or lakes are also of interest in limnology and are sometimes referred to as banks. The grade of all...

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