Bank (geography)

A man-made lake in Keukenhof with grass banks.

A sloping sandy point bar (close side) and the vegetation-stabilized cut bank (far side) on the Namoi River, New South Wales, Australia. These two constitute the banks of the river.

A geographic bank has four definitions and applications:

1. Limnology: The shoreline of a pond, swamp, estuary, reservoir, or lake. The grade (slope) can vary from vertical to a shallow slope.
2. Freshwater ecology: (1) The location of a riparian zone habitats: along the upland and lowland river and stream beds. (2) The ecology around and depending on a marsh, swamp, slough, or estuary.
3. Fluvial: A riverbank or stream-bank: the terrain alongside the bed of a river, creek, or stream.
4. Navigation:
   1. (barrier island) A long narrow island composed of sand and forming a barrier between an island lagoon or sound and the ocean.
   2. (submerged plateau) a relatively flat topped elevation of the sea floor at shallow depth (generally less than 200m), typically on the continental shelf or near an island.

References

• Luna B. Leopold, M. Gordon Wolman, John P. Miller. (1995). Fluvial processes in geomorphology. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-68588-5.