Final answer:
The amount that a river or stream channel curves is called its meandering. This term describes the winding pattern that rivers often develop due to various abiotic factors influencing sediment deposition and erosion along their course.
Step-by-step explanation:
The amount that a river or stream channel curves in a given length is called its meandering. Rivers and streams are dynamic systems that demonstrate a variety of behaviors and patterns along their course. The propensity of a river to meander is influenced by its flow rate, the volume of water, the sediment it carries, and the gradient of the terrain it traverses. As a river matures and moves down its gradient, flow velocity decreases, sedimentation rates increase, and the channel widens, leading to increased meandering. The downstream increase in channel width and the slower flow allows for more pronounced curves or bends, which are a hallmark of a meandering stream.
Abiotic features such as the width and velocity of the stream are narrower and faster, respectively, at the source where the river originates. However, as it moves away from the source, these features change dramatically. The natural tendency of a river to erode the outer bend of its channel and deposit sediment on the inner bend shapes the stream morphology, promoting the meandering pattern that can often result in the formation of features such as oxbow lakes when a meander is cut off from the mainstream.