BODIES OF WATER

A body of water is any significant accumulation of water, generally on a planet’s surface. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands. A body of water does not have to be still or contained; rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical featureswhere water moves from one place to another are also considered bodies of water

Most are naturally occurring geographical features, but some are artificial. Bodies of water that are navigable are known as waterways. Some bodies of water collect and move water, such as rivers and streams, and others primarily hold water, such as lakes and oceans.

Bay- an area of water bordered by land on three sides, similar to, but smaller than a gulf.

Canal – an artificial waterway, usually connected to (and sometimes connecting) existing lakes, rivers, or oceans.

A cape is a high point of land that extends into a river, lake, or ocean

Channel- the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean strati consiting of a bed and banks.

Delta – Triangular location where a river flows into an ocean, sea.

Estuary – a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea.

Fjord (fiord) – a submergent landform which has occurred due to glacial activity.

Glacier – a large collection of ice or a frozen river that moves slowly down a mountain.

Gulf – a part of a lake or ocean that extends so that it is surrounded by land on three sides, similar to, but larger than a bay.

Harbor – an artificial or naturally occurring body of water where ships are stored or may shelter from the ocean’s weather and currents.

Lagoon – a body of comparatively shallow salt or brackish water separated from the deeper sea by a shallow or exposed sandbank, coral reef, or similar feature.

Lake – a body of water, usually freshwater, of relatively large size contained on a body of land.

Marsh – a wetland featuring grasses, reeds and other herbaceous plants) in a context of shallow water.

Ocean – a major body of salty water that, in totality, covers about 71% of the Earth’s surface.

Ox-bow lake – a U-shaped lake formed when a wide meander from the mainstem of a river is cut off to create a lake.

Pond – a body of water smaller than a lake, especially those of artificial origin.

Reservoir – a place to store water for various uses, especially drinking water, which can be a natural or artificial.

River – a natural waterway usually formed by water derived from either precipitation or glacial meltwater, and flows from higher ground to lower ground.

Salt marsh – a type of marsh that is a transitional zone between land and an area, such as a slough, bay, or estuary, with salty or brackish water

Sea – a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, or a large, usually saline, lake that lacks a natural outlet such as the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea . In common usage, often synonymous with ocean.

Source – the original point from which the river or stream flows. A river’s source is sometimes a spring.

Spring – a point where groundwater flows out of the ground, and is thus where the aquifer surface meets the ground Surface.

Strait – a narrow channel of water that connects two larger bodies of water, and thus lies between two land masses.

Swamp – a wetland that features permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a substantial number of hummocks, or dry-land protrusions.

Tributary or affluent – a stream or river that flows into a main stem (or parent) river or a lake.

Wadi – a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills with water after a heavy rain, or seasonally.

Wetland – an environment “at the interface between truly terrestrial ecosystems and truly aquatic systems making them different from each yet highly dependent on both.