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Physical Process

Bank Erosion

Geomorphology

Bank erosion is the wearing away of the margins of a river or stream channel by the combined action of flowing water undercutting the toe of the bank, and mass failure of the oversteepened bank material above once it can no longer support its own weight. It is the geomorphic complement to bar deposition on the opposite bank, the pairing that drives channel migration and river meandering over time, and it is a leading cause of farmland and infrastructure loss along actively migrating rivers. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Process Type
Fluvial 1
Timescale
Years to decades of gradual undercutting, punctuated by sudden bank collapses during individual flood events. 1
Connections

Caused By

Source Bank Erosion (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Bank Erosion (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationView the Source
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