This category includes flat land immediately adjacent to Lake Erie between the water's edge and the bluff and all valley floors along the Cuyahoga River and its tributaries. Flat and wide valley floors with relatively small river channels confined by steep escarpments are typical of the region. The condition is generally referred to as an "underfit" stream because it is assumed that the waterway is too small to have created the valley in which it sits. Causes could include that the waterway was much larger in an earlier geologic time, or other forces, such as the gouging of glacial ice, helped to create the valley.

Glacial History. Before the glaciers covered northern Ohio a much deeper valley and river did exist in the vicinity of today's Cuyahoga River. It is estimated that the elevation of the bottom of that valley was near sea level. The advance and retreat of the glaciers carved out the Great Lakes. The retreat of the glaciers also left a deposit of glacial till in that ancient valley that is in some places as much as 500 feet thick. The Cuyahoga Valley is located within the glacial till that fills that much deeper ancient river valley.

Cleveland. Within the City of Cleveland, the Cuyahoga River meanders from its mouth through a wide, almost completely flat valley, edged by a bluff about 80 feet high. Traditionally this area has been used for industrial purposes and the escarpment has been a sharp division between industry and most other uses. Numerous bridges span the Valley to allow for large ship navigation on the river and to connect the high areas from bluff to bluff. This has further cut off the Valley floor from those who live on the heights above.

Suburbs. The relatively broad valley floor continues to the south, although the actual width does increase and decrease in distinct sections. The longitudinal slope is gentle as evidenced by the Ohio and Erie Canal which parallels the river all the way to Akron. The land on either side of the river, however, rises higher as the Valley cuts into the successively higher terraces of the inland plateau. The terrain grows more dramatic as one goes further south and the height of the escarpment grows greater. The many tributary streams cut more and more intricate shapes out of the plateau, creating landforms, which if they were not forested, would look like the mesas and buttes of the western United States.

Native Vegetation. Valley floors correspond to floodplains and would originally have had wetland, riparian or other lowland vegetation. Much of this original vegetation has been removed. The floodplains and stream valleys of the area were historically home to numerous types of willows. Wetter locations also had sycamores, cottonwoods, elms and boxelders. Black walnuts, butternuts, buckeyes, black maples and shellbark hickories could also be found in some of the dryer locations.

Land Use. Because it was flat and easily accessible, the valley floor terrain has been used for large buildings needed for industry, for locating railroads which need very flat grades and for the cheap disposal of all sorts of waste materials. Ultimately, the solution to problems in the valley floor areas must be with the selection of more appropriate land uses, such as niche agriculture, recreation, or projects that can hold larger areas of land in conservation for the protection or restoration of viable lowland and riparian vegetation.