Investigation of River Gwaun

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Investigation of River Gwaun

Introduction

I am investigating how the course of the river changes from the source

to the mouth. I will study the River Gwaun at 4 sites, starting at

Gellifawr (near the source), then going to Pontfaen, then Llanychaer,

then finally ending at Lower Fishguard, near the mouth where the river

meets the Irish Sea.

I went to do my fieldwork on the 20th May 2002 with my Geography class

and another from my year. I was in a group of 5, with Richard

Gledhíll, Chrís Strzeleckí, Jason Inglesant. Ashley Stone and James

O'Shea. We worked in a group because it is the easiest and probably

the only way to collect all the data we need at each site. We

collected data from each of the 4 sites.

Site 1 - Gellifawr

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Overhanging and heavy vegetation and steep V-shaped valley

[IMAGE]

This is close to the source and is situated in the Preseli Hills. The

relief is steep and the banks are V-shaped, typical of parts of the

river in the Upper Profile. The water and the banks are very muddy.

The river was apparently flowing slowly, there was a lot of large,

angular bed load and there was a few small waterfalls. There was

evidence of turbulence at some parts of the river.

Site 2 - Pontfaen

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This site was on a floodplain next to a farm. There was evidence of an

ox-bow lake nearby, which shows the river had been meandering. The

river is flowing quite fast and the bed load is mostly small

sub-angular/rounded pebbles. The river is quite wide and had much

clearer water than Site 1. The riverbanks were flat but there was an

overhang. There was some evidence of man-management as there were big

boulders on one side of the river (the side bordering the farm), which

is presumably to stop eroding on to farmland and the small pebbles

covered the bed to stop erosion and making the river deeper.

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