Channel (geography)

In physical geography, a channel is the physical confine of a river or slough, consisting of a bed and banks. See Stream bed.

A channel is also the natural or man-made deeper course through a reef, bar, bay, or any shallow body of water. It is especially used as a Nautical term to mean the dredged and marked (See: Buoy) lane of safe travel which a cognizant governmental entity guarantees to have a minimum depth across its specified minimum width to all vessels transiting a body of water. The term not only includes the deep-dredged ship-navigable parts of an estuary or river leading to port facilities, but also to lesser channels accessing boat port-facilities such as marinas. When dredged channels traverse bay mud or sandy bottoms, repeated dredging is often necessary because of the unstable subsequent movement of benthic soils.

Which government entitity is responsible for maintaining which regions of a navigation path to ports may vary, as does what agency actually performs the work to maintain it in navigable condition despite storms and sea-states. In the United States, channels frequented by ships are generally maintained by the United States Department of the Interior, and monitored and policed by the United States Coast Guard, despite such a channel may lead well inland to such ports like Saint Louis hundreds or thousands of miles inland. Lesser channels are maintained by the various states, or local governments. See also: Ship canal.

In a larger nautical context, as a geographical place name, the term channel is another word for strait, which is defined as a relatively narrow body of water that connects two larger bodies of water. In this nautical context, the terms strait, channel, sound, and passage are synonymous and usually interchangeable. For example, in an archipelago, the water between islands is typically called a channel or passage. The English Channel is the strait between England and France.

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