It is spring in North America. This means the snow is melting. In many places, the snow never comes. As the snow melts, the creeks and rivers will expand. What does this result in?
Floods!! Yes, that raging river bursting past its banks and causing many problems. However, one cannot talk about floods without talking about floodplains.
What is a floodplain? This is a low lying area along a river. Whenever a river reaches beyond its normal levels, and has a high discharge, that water has to go somewhere. In that case, it is going to expand to some low-lying land known as a floodplain. In a nutshell, it is a plain for flooding.
Animation below shows how a flood plain works.
Stay tuned for more on flood plains.
TheGeoScholar 