Contents
 Introductions
 Location
 Background knowledge
 Initiative
 Results and graphs
 Interpretation
 Evaluation
 Bibliography
Aims
The aim of my study is to find out about the things that are
stated below about the yellow water river.
My aims include:
 Completing a river study for our GCSE coursework.
 We are doing this to show how river features change
from the source to the mouth.
 Another aim is to compare the yellow water river to the
rivers we have learned about in our textbooks
Hypotheses
Our aims will be achieved by examining and
testing the following 4 hypotheses.
 The LOAD of the river decreases in size and
becomes more rounded as we go downstream.
 The river becomes DEEPER and WIDER as we
go downstream.
 The DISCHARGE and VELOCITY of the river
increases as we go further downstream.
 The GRADIENT of the banks decreases as we
head downstream.
Location
The Yellow river water is located in Rostrevor in the
Mourne Mountains. There are 3 names given to this river
throughout its course on maps. First of all where it starts
near Shanlieve in the Mourne mountains the river is known
as the Yellow water, then the Kilbroney river, and finally the
Rostrevor river where the river has its mouth and enters
Carlingford Lough. The sources of the river starts in the
Mournes and ends at the mouth entering Carlingford Lough
near Rostrevor. Tributaries, small streams, that join the
Yellow water include:
 Glen river
 Cross river
 Carnaclosha stream
The Yellow Water River is a short river. The photograph
below shows the Yellow water river in its Upper course.
Out side Rostrevor you have a small village called Kilkeel.
They are about 7miles apart and this is where our school
is located, ideal for easy access to do this river study. But
before you come to Kilkeel you pass through another
village called Killowen which is approx 3 mile from
Rostrevor.
On the other side of Rostrevor you have a city which is
called Newry. It is quite big with loads of shops and places
to eat. It is the closest city to Rostrevor. On the road from
Newry to Rostrevor you have the lovely town of
Warrenpoint.
What you are missing!
 Need a map of N.Ireland with Rostrevor and
Yellow water river marked on. Must be a Key
showing the Study area, and map must be titled
and labelled
 Need a map of Rostrevor and Yellow water
river, with both labelled and highlighted. Map
must be titled.
Theory
What you are missing!
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Need to apply theory to each hypothesis in turn and state what we
should expect to find and reasons why eg.
 LOAD – reasons for size of rocks decreasing and becoming more
rounded downstream include erosion (mention the 4 types of it). In
upper course river is narrow and shallow so not much energy for
the river and any it has is used up overcoming friction caused by
large boulders. As we go from site 1-4, the river gets wider and
deeper, the volume of water in the river increases and so does the
amount of energy the river has to do work. Friction decreases as
well. The river is able to erode more. Rocks become small and more
rounded as a result.
 WIDTH AND DEPTH – increases downstream as volume of water
increases as river has more energy to erode. Mention the 4
processes of erosion
 GRADIENT – vertical erosion in upper course gradually becomes
lateral erosion
 VELOCITY AND DISCHARGE – Velocity increases because friction
decreases, and volume of water increases. Discharge increases as
more and more tributaries (small streams) join the main river
channel.
 You have completed 3 good bits on the 3 courses but you can
clearly see where you have copied and pasted these from the
internet. Change this and put them in your own words, please.
 You must do one river feature, explain it and how it forms and put
in a diagram of it eg. Meanders, ox-bow lakes, waterfalls, rapids, vshaped valleys etc
 You have written out the 4 types of transport, now do the same for
erosion with the 4 types of erosion
 Check spelling and grammar as sentences do not always make sense.
Read over it. It will be worth the marks this will win for you.
Upper course
The upper course includes steep sided v-shaped valleys,
interlocking spurs, rapids waterfalls and gorges.
Now I am going to explain each one of these statements:
V-shaped valleys and interlocking spurs
V-shaped valleys are created by the upper course of vertical
erosion which is steep sided and narrow. As the river erodes
downwards the soil and loose rock of the valley sides are
removed downhill by slopewash or soil creep. The river also
winds its way around INTERLOCKING SPURS of hard
rock which people should not be confused with meanders!
As in time people are. There is no flat valley floor and the
valley gradient is quite steep.
Waterfalls and gorges
A waterfall is a steep drop in the course of a river. It has a
high head of water and a quality plunge pool at the base.
The rocks at the top of the waterfall are often hard and
resistant, forming a cap rock, and softer rocks below are
undercut. The waterfall may lie within a gorge.
The retreat creates a steep sided gorge of collapse.
Middle course of the river
As you make your way down the middle course of the
river it flow becomes less steep and the river is not as
high above its base level. When the river emerges from
its upland area it begins to meander in order to use up
surplus energy. Meanders are bends in the rivers courses.
The water usually is deeper and flows a lot faster outside
the meander. Some of the rivers energy is also used in
transporting the eroded material downstream. The
amount of load depends on:
 The volume of water- the greater the volume, the
more load it can carry.
 The velocity – a fast flowing river has more energy
to transport.
The lower course of a river
The lower course of the river is called the mouth where it
seems to enter the sea here as it is very wide and has a
flat valley, at the seem time the river becomes wider and
deeper. The river is almost semi-circular and much
smoother because of the deposits of sand and mud. The
lower course of the river seems to carries a large
suspended material.
Processes of a River
Erosion
When rivers have a large bed load made up of coarse
material they scrape or rub against the channel bed,
eventually lowering the level of the bed, creating steep valley
sides. This is vertical (downwards) erosion.
Transportation
All rivers contain minerals and solid material, known as the
load of the river. Weathered material falling into the river
from the valley sides forms 90% of the load. The remaining
10% is the result of erosion caused by the river of its own
banks and bed.
Rivers move their load in four ways:
1) Traction – the rolling of large rocks along the river bed.
This requires a lot of energy, and the largest bed load will
only be moved like this in times of severe flood.
2) Saltation – the bouncing of medium-sized load along the
river bed.
3 Suspension – the smallest load, like fine sand and clay, is
held up continually within the river water. This makes the
water appear opaque carry huge quantise of suspended
material, for e.g. the Yellow river in china has enough
sediment suspended in its flow at any one time to bury the
city of London a metre deep.
4) solution – soluble materials dissolve in the water and are
carried in solution. This may also colour the water, for e.g.
water in the rivers of the Mournes often appears
yellow/brown as it is stained from iron coming off the
surrounding peat bog.
Methodology
What you are missing!
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Need method for hypothesis 3 and 4
Always start by restating the hypothesis
Always list the equipment you will be using for that hypothesis
I have edited and changed a lot of your work so far, but more
changes are needed throughout all your coursework. These need to
be done by you!
Methods used for each Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1 – (Load)
I would expect the load pebble size to decrease as you travel
from the source to the mouth of the river (site 1-4). I would
expect the quantity of load to increase as I go from site 1-4.
How was it carried out?
We picked 20 stones at random from the river bed. We got a
calliper to measure the length of the long axis of each stone.
Also we used a chart to measure the power shape index and
the radius of curvatures of the stone. This is how we
calculated the roundness index. Formula below :
2R (radius) x 1000
Length of long axis
Hypothesis 2- Width and depth
We expect the width of the river to start of small at the start and
become wider while you head downstream. The water should be
the deepest in the middle or the river because of the pressure
that has been build up.
To measure the width, depth and wetted perimeter of the river
bed we used:
 A measuring tape and a measuring stick.
How was this carried out
To get the depth of the river we used the measuring stick and we
recorded the depths every 50cm across the river to get the
average depth.
To measure the wetted perimeter we used the measuring tape
from the edge of the water at one side, along the riverbed to the
edge of the water at the other side.
To measure the bankfull width of the river we used the
measuring tape to measure the width of the river from one bank
to the other. To measure the width we used the measuring tape
to measure from the edge of the water at one side of the river to
the waters edge at the other side. We recorded all these readings.
Regular Equipment needed:
 Warm clothes
 Wet gear
 Coat
 Welly boots
 Hats (cold ears)
 Camera
 Change of clothes
 Clipboard
 Pens/Pencils
 Lunch (sandwich)
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Initiative
What you are missing!
 Re-read your work and see if it makes sense (in some places it does
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not). Change grammar and spelling mistakes (there are a good few)
Do a graph of temperature results (maybe bar chart or line graph)
Any future additions to your initiative you could do in the future
Overall this is pretty good, but make sure this is all not copied and
in your own words or you will lose loads of marks
Temperature of the soils.
Aim- My aim is to investigate the soil temperature increases as
you go downstream, at the 4 different stages at the yellow water
river in Rostrevor.
My hypothesis- The temperature of the soil increases as you go
downstream.
Method-I am going to be measuring the temperature of the soil
with a thermometer at the 4 different stages. And then from my
thermometer, I will take the reading and record it on my table.
These results that I will be recording will be found along my 4
different sites along the river which are:
 Source
 Middle course
 Lower course
 Mouth
As soon as I arrive I will place the thermometer in the soil at a
good depth and left for two minutes to get and accurate reading
for each site.
ResultsFrom site 1 (source) I got a reading of 5°c.
From site 2 which is the middle course the temperature has
stayed the same, which doesn’t yet prove anything bout my
Hypothesis.
Once I got to site 3 the lower course my result moved to 6°c
which help me with my hypothesis. At site 4 (mouth) the
temperature of the soil was 6°c so after I received my result I
got and average of 5.5°c. When I got all my results I put it in an
easy table to get a quicker understanding of it.
Site 1
Times
Tem of soils.
Site 2
Upper course Middle
course
11.30am
11.43am
5°c
5°c
Site 3
Site 4
Lower
course
12.10pm
6°c
mouth
12.23pm
6°c
Average=total temps \ four sites = 5.5°c
From this table you can see I recorded the time of the results taken. What
was the point of this? The point of this was I thought to myself taking
them over a longer separate period of time it would affect my results in
the table, as at certain times of the day the air temperature would change.
From this I thought it would affected the temperature of the soil so I took
my results in a quicker period of time to make it fair and get some
accurate results possible,
Site 3 (lower course)
From my results you and I can see as I went downstream the soil
temperature got warmer by just a single degree from the source to the
mouth of the river. I seen overall I was true on my Hypothesis. I noticed
that from my results the temperature increases as you move downstream
and the reason for this being is probably high attitude. You can see as I
moved downstream in altitude the temperature slightly increased.
Overall I felt I got an accurate and fair results because by keeping my
results fair I placed the thermometer 15cms into the soil and keeping the
same distance apart from the river and left it for 2 minutes to get an
accurate result.
I could have certainly improved my results by getting proper equipment
and getting accurate temperature to a certain decimal place. Maybe I
could have left the equipment in the ground for longer period to see
would it of made any improvement to my Hypothesis. Overall I got the
end result that I needed to and felt I done it as accurately as was possible.
Interpretation
What you are missing here!
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Missing Interpretation for Load, width/depth, discharge/velocity
Always write out your hypothesis in full at the start of each
interpretation, then refer to figures, then explain the figures in
detail
Give reasons for any figures that are unexpected (anomalies)
You still have a lot of work to do.
LOAD – reasons for size of rocks decreasing and becoming more
rounded downstream include erosion (mention the 4 types of it). In
upper course river is narrow and shallow so not much energy for
the river and any it has is used up overcoming friction caused by
large boulders. As we go from site 1-4, the river gets wider and
deeper, the volume of water in the river increases and so does the
amount of energy the river has to do work. Friction decreases as
well. The river is able to erode more. Rocks become small and more
rounded as a result.
WIDTH AND DEPTH – increases downstream as volume of water
increases as river has more energy to erode. Mention the 4
processes of erosion
GRADIENT – vertical erosion in upper course gradually becomes
lateral erosion
VELOCITY AND DISCHARGE – Velocity increases because friction
decreases, and volume of water increases. Discharge increases as
more and more tributaries (small streams) join the main river
channel.
Gradient
Our hypothesis for Gradient was:
 The GRADIENT of the banks decreases as we head
downstream.
Site 1 both the left and right banks were steep with angles up to
50 degrees the right was the steeper of the two.
Site 2 the right bank was steeper the left 1 with angle up to 51
degrees. The right bank was less steep than at site 1.
Site 3 the right bank was more steeper than the left bank with
the right bank reaching 40 degrees and the left bank only
reaching 20 degrees.
Site 4 again the right bank is the steepest with angles hitting 45
degrees and just the left bank hitting 35 degrees. There is a 10
degree different in the banks.
Generally the banks decrease as we go downstream, from steep
at Site 1 near the Source to gentle near the mouth at site 4.
These results show that my hypothesis was generally correct
except the left bank at site two and the right bank at site 3.
I expected the gradient of the banks to decrease as we went
downstream. The reason for the steepness at site 1 is because in
the upper-course of the river vertical erosion takes place. This
creates a steep sided v-shaped valley. As we go down through
the sites lateral erosion takes over and erosion is mainly
sideways. This makes the banks more gentle and that is what we
found.
Evaluation
What you are missing!
Far too short. This is were most people lose a lot of marks in
their coursework including last years bunch
 You need to mention additions and changes and problems you
had with the following three sections:
1. Method – were all the equipment and instruments used
appropriate? Could we have used different equipment? Eg.
Flow meter instead of cork as it got stuck in grass and
between stones
2. Results – were all the results as expected? Were there any
unexpected results (any anomalies)? Was there anything you
could have done to make results more accurate?
3. Conclusion – what would you do differently if you did the
fieldwork and coursework again? Any additions?
 Make all these above changes and again re-read your work to
see if it is correct and makes sense.
 Spell check work and check grammar.

Ways that I could have made the results more accurate was for
e.g. hypothesis 1 I could have used a chart to see how high or
low the friction was at each site. I could have improved this
method by getting a selection of people from the groups to
record the friction at each site and then compare our result. This
would have added to the credibility of my results.
We also could have gone on different days to compare our
results with the ones we got on the first day.
If I had to do this coursework again I would definitely visited
the yellow water river for two days, to see if my result from the
first day is different from the second day.
sports
Play parks
Chapels
Bars
fishing
Shops
cycling