Skip to main content

Generate Shared Link

×

✓ Copied link

This link is exclusively for students and staff members within this organisation.

Unauthorised use will lead to account termination.

Previous

Case study: Thirty years of progress in Bangladesh

Next

Landscapes pictured: East Bank, London

geographical skills

Understanding flood hydrographs

In GCSE geography you will learn about rivers and flood management. To understand the risk of a river flooding following heavy precipitation, we can plot data onto a hydrograph. This article can be read alongside the ‘Planes and floodplains’ case study elsewhere in this issue of Wideworld to illustrate how a hydrograph can be used to analyse a flood event and evaluate the success of flood management schemes.

Rain falls in the background of a riverside location.
© twixx/stock.adobe.com

Ahydrograph displays two sets of data – the amount of rainfall over time using a bar chart and the discharge of the river over time using a line graph, as shown in Figure 1.

By looking at the bar chart, we can see how long the rainfall event lasted, how the volume of rain changed over time and the peak rainfall (the time at which the highest amount of rain fell).

Your organisation does not have access to this article.

Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise

Subscribe

Previous

Case study: Thirty years of progress in Bangladesh

Next

Landscapes pictured: East Bank, London

Related articles: