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floodplain

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.18 sec.
floodplain, level land along the course of a river formed by the deposition of sediment during periodic floods. Floodplains contain such features as levees, backswamps, delta delta [from triangular shape of the Nile delta, like the Greek letter delta], a deposit of clay, silt, and sand formed at the mouth of a river where the stream loses velocity and drops part of its sediment load.
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 plains, and oxbow lakes. Floodplains may be extensive, such as below the conflux of the Ohio and the Mississippi, where they have a width up to 80 mi (130 km). Rivers with extensive floodplains are the Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Po. Floodplains are generally very fertile, thus making them rich agricultural lands. The disadvantage of farming on a floodplain is the natural hazard of floods flood, inundation of land by the rise and overflow of a body of water. Floods occur most commonly when water from heavy rainfall, from melting ice and snow, or from a combination of these exceeds the carrying capacity of the river system, lake, or ocean into which it
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. In the United States there has been extensive house construction on floodplains in recent years, necessitating the construction of new dams to control small, annual floods.


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The property is alternately paved and unpaved and some areas lie within the Santa Clara River's floodplain.
Here are two poems for contemplation, the first, 'Red Oak on Red Hill Above the Floodplain,' and the second, 'Coda, Earth Voice': "I will be here long/ after you're gone, after/ your two-legged life ends/ where it began, after/ what you hadn't thought/ to watch for arrives,/ after storms cease and/ stillness leaves earth/ ready to be born anew (p.
Instead, it might have found itself left behind on a muddy floodplain each time waters receded with the tide ("Amphibious Ancestors," SN: 6/17/06, p.
 
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