River summer zoom Illustration and Icon

River summer zoom. A stylized illustration depicts a meandering freshwater river flowing through a temperate riparian woodland beneath a bright summer sky. At the ecosystem hierarchy, a lotic water body runs within a valley landscape and, at the community level, mixed broadleaf and conifer trees line the riverbank, forming the riparian zone. In the fields of ecology, hydrology, and landscape science, this scene represents a river–forest interface that stabilizes banks, provides habitat and shade, supports primary production, and mediates water, sediment, and nutrient transport in a foothill corridor.