Source of the River Severn

Primary Homework Help
The River Severn

A Key Stage 2 Resource for Rivers and Coasts

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River Severn source - a Peat Bog

image: source
A peat bog surrounds the area around the source

What is a bog?

A bog is a wet land (wetland) habitat. Bogs can be dangerous places because, although they can look (and sometimes feel) like land, in fact they are more like a spongy "floating carpet" of land. Underneath the surface, bogs are full of water - about 90-95% water.

imapge peat blog
Most of the water from all around here will help the River Severn grow

What is peat?

Peat is a soil that is made up of the partially decomposed remains of dead plants (partly rotted roots, branches, leaves and seeds) which have accumulated on top of each other in waterlogged places for thousands of years.

imapge bog
Stone slabs have been laid to make walking through the blog easier
Can you see the footsteps in the bog?

Peat is brownish-black in colour and in its natural state is composed of 90% water and 10% solid material.

image peat

The beginnings of the River Severn

Water trickles off this saturated (waterlogged) land to join other 'trickles' known as gullies or rills, these eventually join with other gullies and form small streams. The streams flow together to make the beginnings of the River Severn.

peat blog

Water always flows downhill by gravity.

Key vocabulary

Gully or Rill
A long narrow channel caused by the concentrated flow of water.

Channel
A channel is an area that contains flowing water confined by banks

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