RILL (rill)
A
very small brook
Common clues: Tiny
stream; Streamlet; Small brook; Moon valley; Lunar
valley
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
once a year
Frequency
in English language:
74056 / 86800
Video: Small brook at bottom of canyon
A rill is a narrow and shallow incision into soil resulting from erosion by overland flow that has been focused into a thin thread by soil surface roughness. Rilling, the process of rill formation, is common on agricultural land and unvegetated ground.
Some rills will continue to grow, as they are widened and/or deepened by the runoff which flows through them. Other rills may decline in importance as sediment is deposited within them. Eventually, a hydrologically efficient rill network will be formed. The development of such a network is an example of self-organisation.
In a few cases, rills may continue to grow and become gullies.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rill".
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