Rivers all over the United States create geological features that fascinate many people, whether it is for work or for play. Rivers also pose a threat to many towns every year as spring rains and snow melt fill these rivers to beyond capacity, causing them to overflow their banks; flooding the surrounding areas. Rivers may cause floods, however, they also provide many benefits to society. One of the most notable is hydroelectric power, which often leads to a river being dammed. A dammed river creates a reliable location for adventure companies to establish whitewater rafting businesses that utilizes the flow of the river through rapids and scenic views to create a thrill for adventure seeking customers.
A river or “stream, ribbons of water confined to channels, or troughs, cut into the land,” (Marshak, 2009) is formed from a drainage network or “the array of interconnecting streams” that form tributaries. (Marshak, 2009). The amount of water that flows down a stream is its discharge. The discharge measurement takes the width and depths or cross sectional area of a river as well as the downstream velocity to get a numeric value for amount of water moving down stream. (Marshak, 2009)
When a river flows downstream it frequently encounters obstacles and changes in the river channel that form “rapids, particularly turbulent water with a rough surface. Rapids also form where the channel abruptly narrows or its gradient changes, suddenly accelerating the water.”(Marshak, 2009) These changes in the dynamics of the river flow create the rapids that modern day thrill seekers look for.
Obstruction, “a boulder or ledge in the middle of a river or the side can obstruct the flow of the river.” ("Internationa...
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...pid formation is caused by the gradient of a river. “The gradient of a river is the rate at which it loses elevation along its course. This loss determines the river’s slope and to a large extent its rate of flow.” ("International Scale of," 2010) this means that a river that losses one foot in elevation over a distance one hundred feet or at a gradient of one percent will flow slower than a river that losses twenty-five feet in elevation over the same one hundred foot section or a twenty-five percent gradient that will have a much higher rate of flow.
Works Cited
International Scale of River Difficulty. (2010, June 11). Retrieved from http://www.mmadventure.com/rafting/river_grade.htm
Marshak, Stephan. (2009). Essentials of Geology. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Whitewater. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.mahalo.com/whitewater/
Exploring the Channel Characteristics of the River Chess The aim of this investigation is to explore the channel
Yes this feature is the result of erosion and depositional processes however, it is not associated with the current water course. This feature may be the result of a Gilbert type delta that once occupied this area. Gilbert type deltas have three main components; topsets, foresets and bottomsets. Topsets are fluvial sediments (primarily sandur deposits) that were deposited on the subaerial delta surface. Erosive events occurring on the upper forslope can result in downslope channels and chutes. These features are then eroded by either strong currents or by debris flow resulting in these channels and chutes to become filled. Foresets are a combination of sand and gravel facies. The are deposited by gravitational processes on the delta foreslope and the grains tend to become finer and more angular downslope. Bottomsets consist of fine grained silts and clay and are deposited at the foot of the delta front.
Barry opens by contrasting the views of other credible intellectuals in stating his fascination with the mechanics of the river. His initial two paragraphs fail to identify the Mississippi River itself, but hint at the rivers magnificence by mentioning its “turbulent effects” and “river hydraulics.” Barry continues to awe his audience with extensive discussion of all its velocities
A major flood on any river is both a long-term and a short-term event, particularly any river basin where human influence has exerted "control" over the ri...
Hydrosphere of the Mississippi River A Case Study of * River management * People interfering in the hydrosphere * A flood management scheme River Basin / Catchment area The source of the river is the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains to the north. There are many hundreds of tributaries including the Red River, Missouri river and the river Ohio. The mountains form the river's watershed. From Minneapolis the river flows South-East into Iowa where it flows south as far as Davenport. At Davenport it is joined by more small tributaries.
The one feature common to the Hoover Dam, the Mississippi River and the Three Gorges Dam is that they all try to control nature’s swings, specifically in the form of flooding. Before the Hoover dam was built, the Colorado river “used to flood spectacularly.but after 1900 the Colorado provoked a vehement response” (Pg 177). The response was simple, but large. The U.S. built several large dams, including the Hoover dam, on the Colorado to decrease its flooding and increase power and irrigation. Unfortunately, just as human control of the Colorado’s flooding increased, its organisms and habitats were detrimentally influenced, and the water became more and more salinated.
Blackwelder would later use the Muddy Creek Problem, in which older limestone dispositions were abruptly halted by the Colorado River’s rapid arrival, to support the notion that the Colorado River was younger than the Kaibab Plateau. John Powell argued against Newbury’s belief that the plateau was older, claiming that the river had already existed when an uplift of the plateau occurred giving it its current formation. This theory is known as Antecedence, but due to the Muddy Creek dilemma another proposition was in need to further push the case for an ancient river. Through Superimposition theory, Alan Strahler stated that an old river would have been assisted by scarp retreat caused by the uplift. Lastly, Eddie McKee attempted to address the Muddy Creek Problem by explaining that a second drainage in the west, or the proposed Hualapai Drainage, caught up with the Colorado River to the east, due to an uplift contributing to a lowered base level.
The Colorado River is formed by small streams created by a huge amount of snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains. The ecology and flow of the river varies highly by region. The river is divided into two different regions, the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin. Beginning in the early 1900s, western states began to build dams in the Colorado river, diverting the water flow to fast growing cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix. The river now services over 30 million in the southwestern parts of the United States and Mexico (Patrick 1). Diverting the water of the nation’s seventh-longest river may be seen has a great accomplishment, however to others this is a great crime against nature. Over the past couple years the river has been running significantly low, since a drought has come up the southwest. At the lakes edge, “bathtub rings”, lines in the rock walls, can be seen showing the decrease in water level. It is recorded in some areas of the river that the water has lowered 130 feet since 2000. Some water resource officials say those areas will never be filled back to normal. The surrounding states must adjust to living with less water or further actions need to be taken to save the river’s water. There has been some talk about adding water to the river to replenish the river but nothing has hap...
“Don’t waste that water! Kids in Africa don’t even have water to drink!” Almost every American has heard this saying before. We have heard this because there are water shortages in third world countries like Africa, as seen in the movie “Blue Gold”. But why have we developed this notion that there are only water shortages in third world countries? When in reality, there is a shortage of water right here in our home country. The Colorado River’s water is high in demand as it serves millions of people, powers industries, and is home to all different kinds of wildlife. The Colorado River will not be able to keep up with the increasing demand of water and soon enough the river will go dry. Organizations like the Colorado River Water Users Association are trying to change the way that the water is used and adjust how it is managed. The Colorado River is drying up and the western states are running out of water, however, public policy is trying to regulate and preserve the Colorado River to make it more sustainable in the future.
Hood River, known as the windsurfing capital of the world, with winds present at all times of day, attracts tourists from all over the world who enjoy the sport. However, the winds of the Columbia are not the only attractions of the Gorge.
Infiltration: This occurs when sewer lines are placed below the water table or when rainfall goes
Mudslides usually occur in hilly areas, for an example, when there was a mudslide in Bangladesh few months back, it occurred at Chittagong. Mudslides occur when a portion of a hill side becomes too weak to hold up its own weight. This is generally caused by an intense amount of rain fall. With all of the new water introduced into the slope the content of liquid makes it so heavy that gravity pulls it downward. Although water plays a major factor in creating the mud that flows in a mudslide the real reason that the land begins to slide is gravity. What happens is mudslides redistribute soil and sediments in a process that can be in abrupt collapses or in slow gradual slides.
I had the pleasure of kayaking about fifteen miles of the Arkansas river, in Colorado, this summer. Flowing from its headwaters near Buena Vista, the Arkansas is a virgin river. Only a trickle during the winter, "The Ark," is reborn every spring with the life bearing waters of fresh mountain snow melt. The greening of river valleys throughout Colorado occurs during the month of June, and traveling from the east I realized how vital the snowmelt waters are to life in the western United States. Without water, something which we take for granted even in brutal summers, life in the west is a struggle.
If the gradient is steep (like the example on the right) then this can indicate that the amount of rainfall becoming overland flow is very high, the result of this is that all the water reaches the river very quickly and all in a short period of time, this gives the immediate steep ascending limb on the hydrograph. Reasons for large amounts of rainfall becoming overland flow can be little vegetation and maybe impermeable rock below the surface. Being impermeable rock, the water cannot infiltrate through this and become ground water, instead it flows over the ground to the river. Urban development and agricultural practices contribute to overland flow.
It was tradition. Every Sunday after church my dad, brother, and I would drive through the fields checking crops and whatever else made their homes in my father's fields. Then we'd drive down to the river to check how high or low it was, or to see how much worse the river was cutting into the land. The river flowed right at the end of the road, so my dad would always pretend he was going to drive straight into it. We live about one in a half miles from the Missouri River. We have our own private road that winds down to a small shoot that connects to it. Because of our closeness to the Missouri, I have grown to love and admire it. It is an enormous and amazing machine to me. I find peace and love for it. It's funny how much alike Jeff, Luke, (the two main characters in Kent Meyer's The River Warren) and I are towards our rivers. Their River Warren is my Big Missouri.