As discharge increases, the stream rises and so has more c-s area, as the velocity increases. If the stream can spread out on a floodplain, its cross-sectional area will increase suddenly and so its velocity and its height will not increases as fast. Some water can be stored in wetlands on a floodplain. These conditions would lead to a flatter hydrograph downstream. Groundwater issues Water below the water table in the saturated zone will flow to lower areas.
Water can move long distances from source areas.
Too many wells can, however, have intersecting cones of depression that lower the water below the bottoms of some wells. At coasts, in the groundwater system fresh water floats on top of salt water. When a cone of depression is formed around a well at the top of the water table, and intrusion of salt water forms a mirror-image cone but larger below the well. Graded profile energy is concentrated in steeper sections.