Earth's Changing Rivers

Earth's Changing Rivers PDF Author: Neil Morris
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
ISBN: 9781410901750
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
Looks at the geography and people that make up river regions throughout the world, focusing on the changing characteristics of both.

Rivers of Change

Rivers of Change PDF Author: Bruce D. Smith
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817354255
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Organized into four sections, the twelve chapters of Rivers of Change are concerned with prehistoric Native American societies in eastern North America and their transition from a hunting and gathering way of life to a reliance on food production. Written at different times over a decade, the chapters vary both in length and topical focus. They are joined together, however, by a number of shared “rivers of change.”

A World of Rivers

A World of Rivers PDF Author: Ellen Wohl
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226904806
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Far from being the serene, natural streams of yore, modern rivers have been diverted, dammed, dumped in, and dried up, all in efforts to harness their power for human needs. But these rivers have also undergone environmental change. The old adage says you can’t step in the same river twice, and Ellen Wohl would agree—natural and synthetic change are so rapid on the world’s great waterways that rivers are transforming and disappearing right before our eyes. A World of Rivers explores the confluence of human and environmental change on ten of the great rivers of the world. Ranging from the Murray-Darling in Australia and the Yellow River in China to Central Europe’s Danube and the United States’ Mississippi, the book journeys down the most important rivers in all corners of the globe. Wohl shows us how pollution, such as in the Ganges and in the Ob of Siberia, has affected biodiversity in the water. But rivers are also resilient, and Wohl stresses the importance of conservation and restoration to help reverse the effects of human carelessness and hubris. What all these diverse rivers share is a critical role in shaping surrounding landscapes and biological communities, and Wohl’s book ultimately makes a strong case for the need to steward positive change in the world’s great rivers.

Where Rivers Change Direction

Where Rivers Change Direction PDF Author: Mark Spragg
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780099280750
Category : Children
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Mark Spragg grew up on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming - a remote spread in the Shoshone National Forest. It is a sublime but unforgiving landscape, a place of unrelenting winds, pitiless blizzards, fierce rivers, and the men who work there have to be tough to survive. Spragg writes lyrically of this world, its animals - horses, bears, elk - and of its people, in particular his parents and John, an old cowboy who becomes the boy's mentor. This is a book about joy - Spragg's writing is miraculous; tough but beautiful, passionate and funny.

Rivers for Life

Rivers for Life PDF Author: Sandra Postel
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267805
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The conventional approach to river protection has focused on water quality and maintaining some "minimum" flow that was thought necessary to ensure the viability of a river. In recent years, however, scientific research has underscored the idea that the ecological health of a river system depends not on a minimum amount of water at any one time but on the naturally variable quantity and timing of flows throughout the year. In Rivers for Life, leading water experts Sandra Postel and Brian Richter explain why restoring and preserving more natural river flows are key to sustaining freshwater biodiversity and healthy river systems, and describe innovative policies, scientific approaches, and management reforms for achieving those goals. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter: explain the value of healthy rivers to human and ecosystem health; describe the ecological processes that support river ecosystems and how they have been disrupted by dams, diversions, and other alterations; consider the scientific basis for determining how much water a river needs; examine new management paradigms focused on restoring flow patterns and sustaining ecological health; assess the policy options available for managing rivers and other freshwater systems; explore building blocks for better river governance. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter offer case studies of river management from the United States (the San Pedro, Green, and Missouri), Australia (the Brisbane), and South Africa (the Sabie), along with numerous examples of new and innovative policy approaches that are being implemented in those and other countries. Rivers for Life presents a global perspective on the challenges of managing water for people and nature, with a concise yet comprehensive overview of the relevant science, policy, and management issues. It presents exciting and inspirational information for anyone concerned with water policy, planning and management, river conservation, freshwater biodiversity, or related topics.

All India Century Digest

All India Century Digest PDF Author: Balwantrai R. Desai
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil law
Languages : en
Pages : 1096

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Book Description


Encyclopedia of Global Change: J-Z

Encyclopedia of Global Change: J-Z PDF Author: Andrew Goudie
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195108256
Category : Global environmental change
Languages : en
Pages : 1405

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Book Description
This reference work concentrates upon both the natural and man-made changes to the world's environment. Containing over 300 original, signed articles by distinguished scholars and 1,500 illustrations it is the comprehensive encyclopedia for this multi-discipline, high profile field. Articles fall into the general categories of: concepts of global change, earth and earth systems, human factors, resources, responses to global change agreements and associations, biographies and case studies. The accessible and jargon-free language make it an excellent work for the professional scholar as well as the interested general reader and a detail network of cross references and blind entries will help readers at all levels.

Introducing Large Rivers

Introducing Large Rivers PDF Author: Avijit Gupta
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118451430
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
An accessible introduction to large rivers, including coverage of the geomorphology, hydrology, ecology, and environments of large river systems This indispensible book takes a structured and global approach to the subject of large rivers, covering geomorphology, hydrology, ecology, and anthropogenic environment. It offers a thorough foundation for readers who are new to the field and presents enlightening discussions about issues of management at the worldwide scale. The book also examines possible future adaptations that may come about due to climate change. The book has benefitted from contributions by Professor W.J. Junk on the ecology of floodplains and Professor Olav Slaymaker on the large arctic rivers. Introducing Large Rivers is presented in three parts. Part 1 provides an introduction to the world’s large rivers and their basins. It covers source, transfer, and storage of their water and sediment; Pleistocene inheritance; the ecology of channels and floodplains; deltas; and more. Several large rivers are discussed in the next part. These include the Amazon Mississippi, Nile, Ganga-Brahmaputra System, Mekong, and Yangtze. The last part examines changes in large rivers and our management of river systems. It studies anthropogenic alterations such as land use and deforestation in large river basins; structural control systems like dams and reservoirs on channels; and ecological changes. It finishes with chapters on the management of large rivers, covering both technical and political aspects, and the future of the world’s big river systems. Introducing Large Rivers is ideal as an introductory textbook on large rivers for future earth and environmental scientists and river managers. It will also benefit advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying geography, geology, ecology, and river management.

Non-fiction Texts

Non-fiction Texts PDF Author: Julie Orrell
Publisher: Nelson Thornes
ISBN: 9780748786589
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
Provides everything you need to slot into your medium term plan.

Channel-conveyance capacity, channel change, and sediment transport in the lower Puyallup, White, and Carbon Rivers, western Washington

Channel-conveyance capacity, channel change, and sediment transport in the lower Puyallup, White, and Carbon Rivers, western Washington PDF Author: Jonathan A. Czuba
Publisher: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Draining the volcanic, glaciated terrain of Mount Rainier, Washington, the Puyallup, White, and Carbon Rivers convey copious volumes of water and sediment down to Commencement Bay in Puget Sound. Recent flooding in the lowland river system has renewed interest in understanding sediment transport and its effects on flow conveyance throughout the lower drainage basin. Bathymetric and topographic data for 156 cross sections were surveyed in the lower Puyallup River system by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and were compared with similar datasets collected in 1984. Regions of significant aggradation were measured along the Puyallup and White Rivers. Between 1984 and 2009, aggradation totals as measured by changes in average channel elevation were as much as 7.5, 6.5, and 2 feet on the Puyallup, White, and Carbon Rivers, respectively. These aggrading river sections correlated with decreasing slopes in riverbeds where the rivers exit relatively confined sections in the upper drainage and enter the relatively unconstricted valleys of the low-gradient Puget Lowland. Measured grain-size distributions from each riverbed showed a progressive fining downstream. Analysis of stage-discharge relations at streamflow-gaging stations along rivers draining Mount Rainier demonstrated the dynamic nature of channel morphology on river courses influenced by glaciated, volcanic terrain. The greatest rates of aggradation since the 1980s were in the Nisqually River near National (5.0 inches per year) and the White River near Auburn (1.8 inches per year). Less pronounced aggradation was measured on the Puyallup River and the White River just downstream of Mud Mountain Dam. The largest measured rate of incision was measured in the Cowlitz River at Packwood (5.0 inches per year). Channel-conveyance capacity estimated using a one-dimensional hydraulic model decreased in some river reaches since 1984. The reach exhibiting the largest decrease (about 20–50 percent) in channel-conveyance capacity was the White River between R Street Bridge and the Lake Tapps return, a reach affected by recent flooding. Conveyance capacity also decreased in sections of the Puyallup River. Conveyance capacity was mostly unchanged along other study reaches. Bedload transport was simulated throughout the entire river network and consistent with other observations and analyses, the hydraulic model showed that the upper Puyallup and White Rivers tended to accumulate sediment. Accuracy of the bedload-transport modeling, however, was limited due to a scarcity of sediment-transport data sets from the Puyallup system, mantling of sand over cobbles in the lower Puyallup and White Rivers, and overall uncertainty in modeling sediment transport in gravel-bedded rivers. Consequently, the output results from the model were treated as more qualitative in value, useful in comparing geomorphic trends within different river reaches, but not accurate in producing precise predictions of mass of sediment moved or deposited. The hydraulic model and the bedload-transport component were useful for analyzing proposed river-management options, if surveyed cross sections adequately represented the river-management site and proposed management options. The hydraulic model showed that setback levees would provide greater flood protection than gravel-bar scalping after the initial project construction and for some time thereafter, although the model was not accurate enough to quantify the length of time of the flood protection. The greatest hydraulic benefit from setback levees would be a substantial increase in the effective channel-conveyance area. By widening the distance between levees, the new floodplain would accommodate larger increases in discharge with relatively small incremental increases in stage. Model simulation results indicate that the hydraulic benefit from a setback levee also would be long-lived and would effectively compensate for increased deposition within the setback reach from increased channel-conveyance capacity. In contrast, the benefit from gravel-bar scalping would be limited by the volume of material that could be removed and the underlying hydraulics in the river section that would be mostly unaffected by scalping. Finally, the study formulated an explanation of the flooding that affected Pacific, Washington, in January 2009. Reduction in channel-conveyance capacity of about 25 percent at the White River near Auburn streamflow-gaging station between November 2008 and January 2009 was caused by rapid accumulation of coarse-grained sediment just downstream of the gage, continuing an ongoing trend of aggradation that has been documented repeatedly.

Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Inclusion of Five Rivers in California's Wild and Scenic Rivers System in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System

Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Inclusion of Five Rivers in California's Wild and Scenic Rivers System in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System PDF Author: United States. Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Environmental impact statements
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description