Search

A stunningly illustrated atlas of the world's rivers, estuaries, and deltas, and their ecosystemsFrom the Congo and the Mekong to the Seine and the Mississippi, Earth's rivers carve through landscapes before coursing into the world's oceans through estuaries and deltas. Their inexorable flow carries sediment and more, acting as lifeblood for a variety of ecosystems and communities. More than any other surface feature of Earth, rivers, estuaries, and deltas are vitally important to our economic and social well-being, and our management of them often sits at the sharp edge of today's most pressing environmental challenges. The World Atlas of Rivers, Estuaries, and Deltas takes readers on an unforgettable tour of these dynamic bodies of water, explaining how they function at each stage of their flow. Combining maps and graphics with informative essays and beautiful photos, this invaluable reference book will give you a new appreciation for the power that rivers, estuaries, and deltas wield.Features a wealth of color photos, maps, and infographicsBrings together invaluable perspectives from leading expertsDescribes the rich biodiversity associated with the world's rivers, estuaries, and deltasExplains how rivers, estuaries, and deltas work, from river networks to deltaic floodplains, and sheds light on the erosion, movement, and deposition of sedimentDescribes the anatomy of rivers, estuaries, and deltas, from channel geometry and river planforms to estuarine shape and delta morphologyExamines the ecology and ecosystems of rivers, estuaries, and deltas and how humans interact with these environmentsAdditional topics include damming, climate change, water use, pollution, resource management, and planetary health, as well as future perspectives on these vital landscapes

“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.

An'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 vital interconnections that rivers share with the land, the sky, and usRivers are essential to civilization and even life itself, yet how many of us truly understand how they work? Why do rivers run where they do? Where do their waters actually come from? How can the same river flood one year and then dry up the next? Where the River Flows takes you on a majestic journey along the planet's waterways, providing a scientist's reflections on the vital interconnections that rivers share with the land, the sky, and us.Sean Fleming draws on examples ranging from common backyard creeks to powerful and evocative rivers like the Mississippi, Yangtze, Thames, and Congo. Each chapter looks at a particular aspect of rivers through the lens of applied physics, using abundant graphics and intuitive analogies to explore the surprising connections between watershed hydrology and the world around us. Fleming explains how river flows fluctuate like stock markets, what'digital rainbows'can tell us about climate change and its effects on water supply, how building virtual watersheds in silicon may help avoid the predicted water wars of the twenty-first century, and much more. Along the way, you will learn what some of the most exciting ideas in science—such as communications theory, fractals, and even artificial life—reveal about the life of rivers.Where the River Flows offers a new understanding of the profound interrelationships that rivers have with landscapes, ecosystems, and societies, and shows how startling new insights are possible when scientists are willing to think outside the disciplinary box.

Many of the world's major cities sprang up on the banks of rivers. Used for water, food, irrigation, transportation, and power, rivers sustain life and connect the world together, but most of us think of them simply as waterways that must be crossed on the way to another place. Using four European and two North American rivers as examples, A Story of Six Rivers considers the place of rivers in our world and emphasizes the inextricable links between history, culture, and ecology. Peter Coates explores six rivers, chosen as examples of the types of rivers found on the planet: the Danube, the second-longest river in Europe; the Spree, which flows through Berlin; the Po, which cuts eastward across northern Italy; the Mersey in northwest England; the Yukon, which runs through Canada and Alaska; and the Los Angeles in California. Creating a series of river biographies, Coates gives voice to each of these bodies of water, exploring how rivers nurture us, provide cultural and economic opportunities, and pose threats to our everyday lives. He challenges recent narratives that paint rivers as the victims of abuse, pollution, and damage at the hands of humans, focusing on change rather than devastation. Describing how humans and rivers form a symbiotic—and sometimes mutually destructive—relationship, Coates argues that rivers illustrate the limits of human authority and that their capacity to inspire us is as strong as our ability to pollute them. An intimate portrait of the way these bodies of water inform our lives, A Story of Six Rivers will make us reconsider the streams and tributaries we traverse each day.

Winding their way through the planet's landscapes and supplying some of its most prosperous cities with fresh water, food, and transportation conduits, rivers and streams have critical ecological and economic significance. As they carve out waterfalls, valleys, canyons, deltas, and a host of other landforms, they also support a diversity of organisms and connect disparate regions. Accompanied by extraordinary color photographs, this volume examines the characteristics of these captivating channels as well as their greatest threats and profiles some of the world's prominent rivers.

Rivers provide the primary link between land and sea. Utilizing the world's largest database, this book presents a detailed analysis and synthesis of the processes affecting fluvial discharge of water, sediment and dissolved solids. It also discusses the ways in which climatic variation, episodic events and anthropogenic activities - past, present and future - affect the quantity and quality of river discharge. The book contains more than 165 figures - many in full color - including global and regional maps. An extensive appendix presents the 1534-river database as a series of 44 tables that provide quantitative data regarding the discharge of water, sediment and dissolved solids. The complete database is also presented within a GIS-based package available online at www.cambridge.org/milliman. Now available in paperback, reprinted with corrections, this is an invaluable resource for researchers, professionals and graduate students in hydrology, oceanography, geology, geomorphology and environmental policy.

Description based on print version record.

Presents an introduction to rivers, describing how they were formed and how they have changed over time, and provides the history and description of ten of the world's most famous rivers.

Rivers differ among themselves and through time. An individual river can vary significantly downstream, changing its dimensions and pattern dramatically over a short distance. If hydrology and hydraulics were the primary controls on the morphology and behaviour of large rivers, we would expect long reaches of rivers to maintain characteristic and relatively uniform morphologies. In fact, this is not the case - the variability of large rivers indicates that other important factors are involved. River Variability and Complexity presents an interesting approach to the understanding of river variability. It provides examples of river variability and explains the reasons for them, including fluvial response to human activities. Understanding the mechanisms of variability is important for geomorphologists, geologists, river engineers and sedimentologists as they attempt to interpret ancient fluvial deposits or anticipate river behaviour at different locations and through time. This book provides an excellent background for graduates, researchers and professionals.