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Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World
by Laurence C. SmithAn "eye-opening, sometimes alarming, and ultimately inspiring" natural history of rivers and their complex and ancient relationship with human civilization (Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction).Rivers, more than any road, technology, or political leader, have shaped the course of human civilization. They have opened frontiers, founded cities, settled borders, and fed billions. They promote life, forge peace, grant power, and can capriciously destroy everything in their path. Even today, rivers remain a powerful global force -- one that is more critical than ever to our future.In Rivers of Power, geographer Laurence C. Smith explores the timeless yet underappreciated relationship between rivers and civilization as we know it. Rivers are of course important in many practical ways (water supply, transportation, sanitation, etc). But the full breadth of their influence on the way we live is less obvious. Rivers define and transcend international borders, forcing cooperation between nations. Huge volumes of river water are used to produce energy, raw commodities, and food. Wars, politics, and demography are transformed by their devastating floods. The territorial claims of nations, their cultural and economic ties to each other, and the migrations and histories of their peoples trace back to rivers, river valleys, and the topographic divides they carve upon the world. And as climate change, technology, and cities transform our relationship with nature, new opportunities are arising to protect the waters that sustain us.Beautifully told and expansive in scope, Rivers of Power reveals how and why rivers have so profoundly influenced our civilization and examines the importance this vast, arterial power holds for the future of humanity."As fascinating as it is beautifully written."---Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, and Upheaval
The Rivers of Greece
by Nikos Skoulikidis Elias Dimitriou Ioannis KaraouzasThis volume provides essential information on the origin and evolution of Greek rivers, as well as their ecological and anthropogenic characteristics. The topics covered include geomythology, biogeography, hydrology, hydrobiology, hydrogeochemistry, geological and biogeochemical processes, anthropogenic pressures and ecological impacts, water management - both in the antiquity and today - and river restoration. The book is divided into four parts, the first of which explores the importance of rivers for ancient Greek civilization and the natural processes affecting their evolution during the Holocene. In the second part, the hydrological, hydrochemical and biological features of Greek rivers and the unique biogeographical characteristics that form the basis for their high biodiversity and endemism are highlighted, while the third part comprehensively discusses the impacts of environmental pollution on the structure and function of Greek river ecosystems. In turn, the final part describes the current socio-economic factors in Greece that are affecting established water management practices, the application of ecohydrological approaches in restoring fragmented rivers, and the lessons learned from restoring aquatic ecosystems in general as a paradigm for understanding and minimizing anthropogenic impacts on water resources, at the Mediterranean scale. Given the breadth and depth of its coverage, the book offers an invaluable source of information for researchers, students and environmental managers alike.
Rivers of Gold: Designing Markets To Allocate Water In California
by Brent M. HaddadThe movement to implement market-based approaches to allocating water is gaining ground across California and in other western states. Proponents argue that markets offer an efficient and cost-effective means of promoting conservation -- those who need water would pay for it on the open market, while others would conserve rather than pay increased prices.Rivers of Gold takes a new look at California's water-reallocation challenge. The author explains the concept of water markets and the economic theory undergirding them. He shows how some water markets have worked -- and others have failed -- and gives the reader the analytic tools necessary to understand why. The book: provides an overview of water-supply issues in California compares the situation in California with that of other western states considers the different property rights regimes governing current use and their fit with water market institutions explains how water markets would work and their benefits and drawbacks as an allocation mechanism presents a series of case studies of water markets currently in effect in California offers a list of principles for water market designRivers of Gold offers a balanced understanding of both the role that markets can play in reallocating water and the limitations of the market mechanism. In the end, the author offers a comprehensive assessment of the institutional design features that any water market should incorporate if it is to reallocate water effectively, in California or in any other region where water is scarce.Rivers of Gold is the first book to provide a detailed examination of water markets and the institutional design issues associated with them. It is the only book available that presents in-depth case studies of actual water-market transactions, and will be essential reading for water resource professionals and resource economists, as well as for students and scholars of environmental policy, environmental economics, and resource economics.
Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West
by Donald WorsterWhen Henry David Thoreau went for his daily walk, he would consult his instincts on which direction to follow. More often than not his inner compass pointed west or southwest. "The future lies that way to me," he explained, "and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. " In his own imaginative way, Thoreau was imitating the countless young pioneers, prospectors, and entrepreneurs who were zealously following Horace Greeley's famous advice to "go west. " Yet while the epic chapter in American history opened by these adventurous men and women is filled with stories of frontier hardship, we rarely think of one of their greatest problems--the lack of water resources. And the same difficulty that made life so troublesome for early settlers remains one of the most pressing concerns in the western states of the late-twentieth century. The American West, blessed with an abundance of earth and sky but cursed with a scarcity of life's most fundamental need, has long dreamed of harnessing all its rivers to produce unlimited wealth and power. In Rivers of Empire, award-winning historian Donald Worster tells the story of this dream and its outcome. He shows how, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Mormons were the first attempting to make that dream a reality, damming and diverting rivers to irrigate their land. He follows this intriguing history through the 1930s, when the federal government built hundreds of dams on every major western river, thereby laying the foundation for the cities and farms, money and power of today's West. Yet while these cities have become paradigms of modern American urban centers, and the farms successful high-tech enterprises, Worster reminds us that the costs have been extremely high. Along with the wealth has come massive ecological damage, a redistribution of power to bureaucratic and economic elites, and a class conflict still on the upswing. As a result, the future of this "hydraulic West" is increasingly uncertain, as water continues to be a scarce resource, inadequate to the demand, and declining in quality. Rivers of Empire represents a radically new vision of the American West and its historical significance. Showing how ecological change is inextricably intertwined with social evolution, and reevaluating the old mythic and celebratory approach to the development of the West, Worster offers the most probing, critical analysis of the region to date. He shows how the vast region encompassing our western states, while founded essentially as colonies, have since become the true seat of the American "Empire. " How this imperial West rose out of desert, how it altered the course of nature there, and what it has meant for Thoreau's (and our own) mythic search for freedom and the American Dream, are the central themes of this eloquent and thought-provoking story--a story that begins and ends with water.
Rivers (My World of Geography)
by Angela RoystonWhat is the source of a river? How can you travel on a river? How can you help protect rivers? Read this book to find out all about rivers!
Rivers at Risk: Concerned Citizen's Guide To Hydropower
by Richard Roos-Collins John Echeverria Pope Barrow American RiversRivers at Risk is an invaluable handbook that offers a practical understanding of how to influence government decisions about hydropower development on America's rivers.
Rivers: One Man And His Dog Paddle Into The Heart Of Britain
by Griff Rhys JonesIn punts canoes and rowing boats, Griff Rhys Jones takes us on a tour of Britain's beautiful and extraordinary rivers. He battles through the gorges and waterfalls of Scotland's wild mountains, drifts across the plains of East Anglia and plunges into the Wye, exploring the legends and stories of our rivers on the way. How did man harness the power of water in feats of engineering like the Manchester Ship Canal, or the fountains at Chatsworth pr the weirs of Hertfordshire? What's it like to fall through a canyon in the Highlands, snorkel through a bog, slalom down a rapid or ride the Severn Bore? How were rivers an inspiration for Constable and the hermits of Bridgnorth? Griff investigates the love affair between cities and rivers from Liverpool's Mersey to London's Lea. From reminiscing about childhood holidays on the Suffolk Stour to taking the plunge on a wintry morning in the Tay as it rushes through Perth, Griff shares his person journeys along the river systems of Britain - always accompanied by Cadbury the faithful water dog.
Rivers: One man and his dog paddle into the heart of Britain
by Griff Rhys JonesIn punts canoes and rowing boats, Griff Rhys Jones takes us on a tour of Britain's beautiful and extraordinary rivers. He battles through the gorges and waterfalls of Scotland's wild mountains, drifts across the plains of East Anglia and plunges into the Wye, exploring the legends and stories of our rivers on the way. How did man harness the power of water in feats of engineering like the Manchester Ship Canal, or the fountains at Chatsworth pr the weirs of Hertfordshire? What's it like to fall through a canyon in the Highlands, snorkel through a bog, slalom down a rapid or ride the Severn Bore? How were rivers an inspiration for Constable and the hermits of Bridgnorth? Griff investigates the love affair between cities and rivers from Liverpool's Mersey to London's Lea. From reminiscing about childhood holidays on the Suffolk Stour to taking the plunge on a wintry morning in the Tay as it rushes through Perth, Griff shares his person journeys along the river systems of Britain - always accompanied by Cadbury the faithful water dog.
Rivers: Form and Process in Alluvial Channels (Routledge Revivals)
by Keith RichardsOriginally published in 1982, this book presents a detailed review of alluvial river form and process and integrates the distinct but related approaches of geomorphologists, geologists and engineers to the subject. It outlines the environmental catchment factors that control the development of channel equilibrium and provides a detailed account of the sediment transport processes that represent the physical mechanisms by which channel adjustment occurs. Where possible it evaluates theoretical analyses in the context of the empirical evidence. Rivers should prove a valuable textbook for geomorphology students on advanced undergraduate courses on river behaviour and will also be of interest to students of hydraulics and sedimentology and to those concerned with civil and environmental engineering, river management and channel design, maintenance and management in the water industry
Riverlands of the Anthropocene: Walking Our Waterways as Places of Becoming (Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies)
by Margaret SomervilleThis is an invitation to readers to ponder universal questions about human relations with rivers and water for the precarious times of the Anthropocene. The book asks how humans can learn through sensory embodied encounters with local waterways that shape the architecture of cities and make global connections with environments everywhere. The book considers human becomings with urban waterways to address some of the major conceptual challenges of the Anthropocene, through stories of trauma and healing, environmental activism, and encounters with the living beings that inhabit waterways. Its unique contribution is to bring together Australian Aboriginal knowledges with contemporary western, new materialist, posthuman and Deleuzean philosophies, foregrounding how visual, creative and artistic forms can assist us in thinking beyond the constraints of western thought to enable other modes of being and knowing the world for an unpredictable future. Riverlands of the Anthropocene will be of particular interest to those studying the Anthropocene through the lenses of environmental humanities, environmental education, philosophy, ecofeminism and cultural studies.
Riverflow: The Right to Keep Water Instream
by Paul Stanton KibelThere are many people and places connected to rivers: fishermen whose livelihood depends on river ecosystems, farms that need irrigation, indigenous groups whose cultures rely on fish and flowing waters, cities whose electricity comes from hydroelectric dams, and citizens who seek wild nature. For all of these people, instream flow is vitally important to where and how they live and work. Riverflow reveals the diverse and creative ways people are using the law to restore rivers, from the Columbia, Colorado, Klamath and Sacramento–San Joaquin watersheds in America, to the watersheds of the Tweed in England and Scotland, the Fraser in Canada, the Saru in Japan, the Nile in North Africa, and the Tigris–Euphrates in the Middle East. Riverflow documents that we already have the legal tools to preserve the ecological integrity of our waterways; the question is whether we have the political will to deploy these tools effectively.
Riverbank Erosion Hazards and Channel Morphodynamics: A Perspective of Fluvial Geomorphology
by Sourav Dey Sujit MandalThis book explores fluvial processes and their consequences on river dynamics in India. It discusses the integration of geomorphic, hydrologic, and socio-economic data with various policies and decisions regarding sustainable river basin management. The volume looks at the origin and development of streams, chronology of fluvial geomorphology, fluvial system concept, process–form interaction, river dynamics, channel migration, flow regime, channel types, and hydraulic and morphometric parameters; and explains how changing hydro-geomorphological dynamics have influenced land use patterns, nature of fluids, behaviour of floods, etc. It examines channel migration vulnerability and bank erosion hazard vulnerability of the Torsa River in the eastern region of India as a case study using channel migration zone and Bank Erosion Hazard Index models. The book presents a new research framework based on field surveys, scientific investigations, and analytical techniques and methods to interpret key geoinformatics data. With its extensive illustrations, this book will be useful to students, teachers, and researchers of geography, earth sciences, environmental geology, and environment and disaster management. It will also interest geographers, civil engineers, hydrologists, geomorphologists, planners, and other individuals and organizations working on fluvial processes and riverbank erosion problems globally.
The River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water
by Chris Dombrowski“We are matter and long to be received by an Earth that conceived us, which accepts and reconstitutes us, its children, each of us, without exception, every one. The journey is long, and then we start homeward, fathomless as to what home might make of us.” —from The River You Touch When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as “a classic” (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated All of It Everywhere with a question as timely as it is profound: “What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?” He answers this fundamental question of our time initially by listening lovingly to rivers and the land they pulse through in his adopted home of Montana. Transplants from the post-industrial Midwest, he and his partner, Mary, assemble a life based precariously on her income as a schoolteacher, his as a poet and fly-fishing guide. Before long, their first child arrives, followed soon after by two more, all “free beings in whom flourishes an essential kind of knowing […], whose capacity for wonder may be the beacon by which we see ourselves through this dark epoch.” And around the young family circles a community of friends -- river-rafting guides and conservationists, climbers and wildlife biologists -- who seek to cultivate a way of living in place that moves beyond the mythologized West of appropriation and extraction. Moving seamlessly from the quotidian -- diapers, the mortgage, a threadbare bank account -- to the metaphysical -- time, memory, how to live a life of integrity -- Dombrowski illuminates the experience of fatherhood with intimacy and grace. Spending time in wild places with their children, he learns that their youthful sense of wonder at the beauty and connectivity of the more-than-human world is not naivete to be shed, but rather wisdom most of us lose along the way -- wisdom that is essential for the possibility of transformation.
river woman
by Katherena VermetteGovernor General’s Award–winning Métis poet and acclaimed novelist Katherena Vermette’s second collection, river woman, explores her relationship to nature — its destructive power and beauty, its timelessness, and its place in human history.Award-winning Métis poet and novelist Katherena Vermette’s second book of poetry, river woman, examines and celebrates love as decolonial action. Here love is defined as a force of reclamation and repair in times of trauma, and trauma is understood to exist within all times. The poems are grounded in what feels like an eternal present, documenting moments of clarity that lift the speaker (and reader) out of the illusion of linear experience. This is what we mean when we describe a work of art as being timeless.Like the river they speak to, these poems return again and again to the same source in search of new ways to reconstruct what has been lost. Vermette suggests that it’s through language and the body ― particularly through language as it lives inside the body ― that a fragmented self might resurface as once again whole. This idea of breaking apart and coming back together is woven throughout the collection as the speaker contemplates the ongoing negotiation between the city, the land, and the water, and as she finds herself falling into trust with the ones she loves.Vermette honours the river as a woman ― her destructive power and beauty, her endurance, and her stories. These poems sing from a place where “words / transcend ceremony / into everyday” and “nothing / is inanimate.”
River Without a Cause: An Expedition through the Past, Present and Future of Theodore Roosevelt's River of Doubt
by Sam MosesA riveting journey down Theodore Roosevelt's "river of doubt" with a diverse crew of adventurers, scientists, and Indigenous leaders who shine light on the past, present, and future of a natural wonder.Sam Moses took part in the adventure of a lifetime when he, along with seventeen men and two women, embarked on the Rio Roosevelt Expedition. They would follow the former president's wake down five-hundred miles of extreme whitewater into the dark heart of the Amazon. The party was guided by two chiefs from the Cinta Larga tribe—the same tribe that stalked Roosevelt&’s expedition in 1914—who, between rapids, tell the story of the tribe&’s own Trail of Tears. After the wildest whitewater is past, Moses travels with the chiefs to their village to witness the massive illegal mahogany logging from their forest, the Roosevelt Indigenous Territory. River Without a Cause puts us in the raft during those heart pounding rapid descents, as we experience the drama, dynamics and disputes between the Bull Moose and his co-leader, Brazil&’s most famous explorer, the rigid Colonel Candido Rondon. As the Amazon stands on the precipiece of hope with the election of a new Brazillian president, River Without a Cause is a moving and galvanzing tale of adventure that is a fitting tribute to this world wonder.
The River Why
by David James DuncanThe classic novel of fly fishing and spirituality, originally published in 1983.Since its publication in 1983, THE RIVER WHY has become a classic. David James Duncan's sweeping novel is a coming-of-age comedy about love, nature, and the quest for self-discovery, written in a voice as distinct and powerful as any in American letters.Gus Orviston is a young fly fisherman who leaves behind his comically schizoid family to find his own path. Taking refuge in a remote cabin, he sets out in pursuit of the Pacific Northwest's elusive steelhead. But what begins as a physical quarry becomes a spiritual one as his quest for self-knowledge batters him with unforeseeable experiences. Profoundly reflective about our connection to nature and to one another, THE RIVER WHY is also a comedic rollercoaster. Like Gus, the reader emerges utterly changed, stripped bare by the journey Duncan so expertly navigates.
The River Why
by David James DuncanNot in recent memory has there been such a unique and vibrant fictional character--a character who could make us laugh so easily, feel so deeply, who speaks with such startling truth about the way we live, as Gus Orviston--the irreverent young fly fisherman in "The River Why."
A River Trilogy: A Fly-Fishing Life
by W. D. WetherellFor the first time together, River Trilogy combines three classic works on fly fishing by W. D. Wetherell. Contained here are some of Wetherell’s most poetic pieces, a combination of spontaneous journal entries, reflections on contemplative excursions, and outright fishing tales. Each passage is filled with moving imagery describing the beauty of the river and the natural world that surrounds it. The first book in the collection, Vermont River, is an elegy to the author’s love of fly fishing in his native Vermont. Selected by Trout magazine as one of the thirty finest works on fly fishing, Vermont River will move readers with its radiant descriptions of Wetherell’s beloved sport and region. In Upland Streams, Wetherell explores the meandering streams and crooked creeks that dot New England’s landscape, the mighty rivers that flow through the Southwest, and the crags and lochs that fill the countryside of Scotland. Conveyed with characteristic humor and introspection, Upland Streams chronicles moments of life lived close to nature in all its majesty. One River More, the final volume in the collection, begins as a traditional chronicle of trout fishing in Vermont and Montana. It quickly, however, becomes a rich exploration of some of the most essential human experiences: love of nature and love of family.
River Tourism
by Malcolm Cooper Bruce PrideauxRivers constitute a major tourism resource, providing spectacular settings, recreation facilities, a means of transport, a sense of heritage and adventure, and links with the environment and natural world. River tourism accounts for a significant proportion of the world's tourism consumption, with activities such as Nile cruises and rafting holidays making it an economically important area of tourism demanding in-depth analysis. This book explores river tourism from a range of perspectives including uses, heritage, management, environmental concerns, and marketing.
River Teeth: Stories and Writings
by David James DuncanIn his passionate, luminous novels, David James Duncan has won the devotion of countless critics and readers, earning comparisons to Harper Lee, Tom Robbins, and J.D. Salinger, to name just a few. Now Duncan distills his remarkable powers of observation into this unique collection of short stories and essays. At the heart of Duncan's tales are characters undergoing the complex and violent process of transformation, with results both painful and wondrous. Equally affecting are his nonfiction reminiscences, the "river teeth" of the title. He likens his memories to the remains of old-growth trees that fall into Northwestern rivers and are sculpted by time and water. These experiences--shaped by his own river of time--are related with the art and grace of a master storyteller. In River Teeth, a uniquely gifted American writer blends two forms, taking us into the rivers of truth and make-believe, and all that lies in between.
River Science: Research and Management for the 21st Century
by David J. Gilvear Malcolm T. Greenwood Martin C. Thoms Paul J WoodRiver Science is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary field at the interface of the natural sciences, engineering and socio-political sciences. It recognises that the sustainable management of contemporary rivers will increasingly require new ways of characterising them to enable engagement with the diverse range of stakeholders.This volume represents the outcome of research by many of the authors and their colleagues over the last 40 years and demonstrates the integral role that River Science now plays in underpinning our understanding of the functioning of natural ecosystems, and how societal demands and historic changes have affected these systems. The book will inform academics, policy makers and society in general of the benefits of healthy functioning riverine systems, and will increase awareness of the wide range of ecosystem goods and services they provide.
River Runs Deep
by Jennifer Bradbury<P>When a boy is sent to Mammoth cave to fight a case of consumption, little does he know he'll also be fighting for the lives of a secret community of escaped slaves, who are hidden deep within the cave. <P>Twelve-year-old Elias has consumption, so he is sent to Kentucky's Mammoth Cave--the biggest cave in America--where the cool cave vapors are said to be healing. At first, living in a cave sounds like an adventure, but after a few days, Elias feels more sick of boredom than his illness. <P>So he is thrilled when Stephen, one of the slaves who works in the cave, invites him to walk further through its depths. But there are more than just tunnels and stalagmites waiting to be discovered; there are mysteries hiding around every turn. <P>The truths they conceal are far more stunning than anything Elias could ever have imagined, and he finds himself caught right in the middle of it all--while he's supposed to be resting. But how can he focus on saving his own life when so many others are in danger?
A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka
by Meera SubramanianCrowded, hot, subject to violent swings in climate, with a government unable or unwilling to face the most vital challenges, the rich and poor increasingly living in worlds a∂ for most of the world, this picture is of a possible future. For India, it is the very real present. In this lyrical exploration of life, loss, and survival, Meera Subramanian travels in search of the ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India’s ravaged natural world: an engineer-turned-farmer brings organic food to Indian plates; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook stove designers persist on the quest for a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and in Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, a bold young woman teaches adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. While investigating these five environmental challenges, Subramanian discovers the stories that renew hope for a nation with the potential to lead India and the planet into a sustainable and prosperous future.
River Road Rambler Returns: More Curiosities along Louisiana's Historic Byway
by Mary Ann Sternberg Elizabeth Randall NeelyIn River Road Rambler Returns: More Curiosities along Louisiana’s Historic Byway, Mary Ann Sternberg follows up her successful River Road Rambler with new delightful histories from Louisiana’s most famous route. Her latest explorations include a trip on a towboat as it pushes a fleet of barges down the river; the true story behind the Sunshine Bridge, fondly called the Bridge to Nowhere; a tour of one of the last working sugar mills along the River Road; stories about how two iconic plantation houses were saved; and much more.Well researched and engagingly written, River Road Rambler Returns provides keen observations on unappreciated places and offers rich histories of unusual attractions along the winding road that lines the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
River Road Rambler: A Curious Traveler along Louisiana's Historic Byway (Southern Literary Studies)
by Mary Ann SternbergThe River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge hosts a fascinating mix of people, traditions, and stories. Author Mary Ann Sternberg has spent over two decades exploring this historic corridor, uncovering its intriguing and often-underappreciated places. In River Road Rambler, she presents fifteen sketches about sites along this scenic route. From familiar stops, such as the National Hansen's Disease Center Museum at Carville and the perique tobacco area of St. James Parish to lesser-known attractions such as Our Lady of Lourdes grotto in the town of Convent and the Colonial Sugars Historic District, Sternberg provides a new perspective on some of the region's most colorful places. While many of these locales remain easily accessible to any River Road rambler, Sternberg also depicts others closed to the public, giving armchair travelers an introduction to these otherwise unreachable attractions. Throughout, Sternberg captures the ambiance of her surroundings with a clear, engaging, and personal examination of the relationships between past and present. In a poignant piece on the garden of "Valcour" Aime, for example, she delves into the history of this lavish, nationally acclaimed planter's garden, established and abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century. Her visit to the now-private and protected site, which has never been altered or replanted, uncovers an extraordinary landscape -- the relic of what Aime created, slowly overwhelmed by nature. These sketches brim with insights and observations about everything from the fire that razed The Cottage plantation to the failed attempts to salvage the reproduction of the seventeenth-century French warship Le Pelican from the bottom of the Mississippi. River Road Rambler links us to both past and present while revealing delightful and unexpected surprises only found along this storied byway.