The terms river morphology and its synonym fluvial geomorphology are used to describe the shapes of river channels and how they change over time. The morphology of a river channel is a function of a number of processes and environmental conditions, including the composition and erodibility of the bed and banks (e.g., sand, clay, bedrock); vegetation and the rate of plant growth; the availability of sediment; the size and composition of the sediment moving through the channel; the rate of sediment transport through the channel and the rate of deposition on the floodplain, banks, bars, and bed; and regional aggradation or degradation due to subsidence or uplift.
The study of river morphology is accomplished in the field of fluvial geomorphology.
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