Info 1: Measuring Stream size

Depth of Water

The graph shows that the river became deeper as the stream order increased except for at stream order 4.

This is an expected result and shows that further down stream the more water is added to the river from the tributaries and the greater the depth of water. The reduction at order 4 was unexpected but may be explained by local circumstances where a treatment works extracts water from the river to supply Bossington and Porlock.

Discharge

This is also reflected in the graph showing discharge, which shows an increase as the stream order increases, but then a reduction near Bossington due to the local extraction.

Width of Water Surface:

The result shows that the width of the water surface increases as the stream order increases. This reflects the volume of water in the channel but again there is a slight reduction where the water extraction effects the channel volume at Bossington.