natural levee

American  

noun

1. a deposit of sand or mud built up along, and sloping away from, either side of the flood plain of a river or stream.

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Example Sentences

The entire delta, under natural conditions, lay above sea level, ranging from a few inches along the coastal fringe to over a dozen feet high at the crest of the Mississippi River’s natural levee.

From Scientific American • Mar. 3, 2018

Photograph: General Photographic Agency/Getty But massive drainage systems installed in the late-19th and early 20th centuries emptied out city-owned cypress tree swamps behind the natural levee.

From The Guardian • Aug. 24, 2015

Throughout New Orleans’ first two centuries, development was densely clustered on this natural levee, making residents less vulnerable to flooding.

From The Guardian • Aug. 24, 2015

Each side of the channel is thus raised so as to form what is termed a natural levee.

From North America by Russell, Israel C. (Cook)

A natural levee, eight and ten feet high, and studded with large tree-willows, rims in the island farm like the edge of a basin.

From Afloat on the Ohio An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo by Thwaites, Reuben Gold