In humid area, the effect of stream erosion is to round landform. Stream flowing down moderate gradient tend to crave valleys that are wider than those in mountainous area. Surrounding hills become rounded, and valleys eventually become floodplain as they broaden and flatten. Stream work to widen the floodplain. Their courses meander, constantly carving out new river channels. The channels left behind as new ones are cut become oxbow lakes, hundreds of which are found in the Mississippi River floodplain (Figure 3.23b). An oxbow lake is crescent-shaped and occupies the abandoned channel of a stream meander.
Figure 3.32 (a) V-shaped valleys of a rapidly downcutting stream, the Yellowstone River in Wyoming (b) Oxbow –shaped lakes adjoining a meandering stream in Alaska
In nearly flat floodplains, the highest elevations may be the banks Rivers, where natural levees are formed by the deposition of silt at River edges during flood. Flood that breach levees are particularly disastrous because flood waters fill the floodplain as they equalize its elevation with that of the swollen river. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers has augmented the natural levees in particularly susceptible areas such as the banks of the lower Mississippi River.