This video, we're going to talk about streams and rivers. Streams and rivers are both bodies of water that are constantly flowing or moving in one particular direction, and that's going to be from areas of high elevation down to areas of low elevation because of gravity. Streams and rivers are actually quite similar to each other, except they are at different scales in terms of their size. Streams are going to be at a much smaller scale. On the other hand, rivers are going to be at a much larger scale, and so rivers tend to have larger volumes of water.
They're wider. They're deeper. They're longer in terms of their length, and they have higher or faster flow rates of water. Rivers also have more tributaries in comparison to streams. Tributaries are really just bodies of water that are flowing and contributing to other bodies of water.
And so if we take a look at this image in the top left here, what you'll notice is we're labeling the larger scaled river right here. Notice that we're also labeling these much smaller streams, which you can see here and over here as well. What you'll notice is that these streams are flowing into the river and contributing to the river, and therefore, these streams are also serving as tributaries to the river. Another thing to keep in mind is that the aquatic productivity of streams and rivers actually varies. So, this here concludes our brief lesson.