The Eden Basin

Question 1

Where is the Eden Basin?

Answer 1

The North-west of england between the mountains of the Lake District and Pennines

Question 2

What does the river drain?

Answer 2

The north-east Lake District fells and the North-West pennines

Question 3

Where is the source?

Answer 3

Pennine Hills in south Cumbria

Question 4

Where does it flow?

Answer 4

North-west through Appleby-in-Westmorland and Carlisle

Question 5

Where is its mouth?

Answer 5

The solway Firth at the Scottish border

Question 6

Why is Carlisle vulnerable?

Answer 6

Its at the confluence of the Eden, Petteril and Caldew rivers and its low lying

Question 7

Why is rainfall higher than the average?

Answer 7

Because of the relied of the area - the mountains terrain encourages orographic rainfall. This means lots of water enters the river channels

Question 8

What increases the lag time?

Answer 8

Because its long and narrow

Question 9

What do the steep slopes cause?

Answer 9

Reduces lag time and increases peak discharge

Question 10

What Is impermeable?

Answer 10

Water doesn’t. soak into them.

Question 11

What is the highest ground to the west of the basin made of and describe it?

Answer 11

Impermeable igneous rock. Infiltration is slow and surface runoff is high, reducing lag time

Question 12

What are 2 examples of permeable rock?

Answer 12

Limestone and Sandstone

Question 13

What is it like when it is made of limestone and sandstone?

Answer 13

When precipitation falls, infiltration. is quick and there’s little surface run off, increasing lag time.The amount of water in ground stores increases

Question 14

What has land use change affected in the drainage basin?

Answer 14

Water. cycle and increased flood risk

Question 15

What 3 types of land change affect. the drainage basin?

Answer 15

Farming, Construction and Deforestation

Question 16

What happened to farming between 2000-2009?

Answer 16

Intense farming caused soils to become compact, here there was a 30% increase in the number of cattle, meaning. more land is likely to be trampled

Question 17

What does compaction cause?

Answer 17

Reduces infiltration, so surface runoff is higher. Meaning water levels in rivers rise quickly due to heavy rainfall increasing flood risk

Question 18

What has grazing in upland areas caused?

Answer 18

Reduced the amount of vegetation. can intercept rainfall, resulting in more water reaching rivers

Question 19

What has happened in Carlisle in recent years?

Answer 19

New housing has been built. The Eden Gate development in the North of the city have plans to develop 10,000 new homes

Question 20

What are surfaces like in built up areas?

Answer 20

Impermeable, reducing the size of infiltration flows and greatly increases the size and speed of surface run off flows

Question 21

What risks have developments been built on floodplains caused?

Answer 21

Creating flood risk to property and requires flood defences. It causes flooding downstream as water naturally infiltrate in the floodplains flows downstream instead

Question 22

What has deforestation caused in the Basin?

Answer 22

Much of the original forest has been removed and given ways to large areas of open grassland and heathland. Trees increase infiltration and decrease runoff so fewer trees means more runoff, flashier flood hydrography and a greater risk of flooding

Question 23

What is climate change predicted to do in. the UK?

Answer 23

Change rainfall patterns - The Western UK could have 35% more winter rainfall by 2080. Increased winter rainfall in the Eden Basin would increase runoff and flood risk

Question 24

What happened in December 2015?

Answer 24

Storm Desmond caused devastating flooding in Cumbre.

Question 25

What happened in some areas of Cumbria?

Answer 25

Record rainfall. In a village there. was 262.6mm of rainfall in a 48. hour period. (50mm than average)

Question 26

Where was affected by Storm Desmond?

Answer 26

Appleby-in-Westmorland and Carlisle were badly affected. 2000 properties were flooded leaving many homeless

Question 27

What can you investigate when doing fieldwork

Answer 27

Investigate how rock type and land use affects flows in a drainage basin - you do this by. measuring soil saturation in different parts of the basin. You measure the response of a river to. precipitation using primary or secondary data