A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill (occasionally ghyll), kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or runnel.
Streams are important as conduits in the water cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge, and corridors for fish and wildlife migration. The biological habitat in the immediate vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology and is a core element of environmental geography.
Read more about Stream: Types, Other Names, Parts of A Stream, Sources, Characteristics, Intermittent and Ephemeral Streams, Drainage Basins
Famous quotes containing the word stream:
“Ye gentle souls, who dream of rural ease,
Whom the smooth stream and smoother sonnet please;
Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share,
Go, look within, and ask if peace be there:
If peace be his—that drooping weary sire,
Of theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire,
Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand
Turns on the wretched hearth th’ expiring brand.”
—George Crabbe (1754–1832)
“Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.”
—P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy)
“When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)