Columbia River Basin
Section 1: Introducing the Columbia River Basin
What do you get when you put together a flowing river, with a beautiful mountain, and a rolling valley? The result is the amazing Columbia River Basin. The Columbia River is the sculptor that carved the Interior Columbia River Basin. The Columbia River Basin is made up of many different environments, and contains many different organisms. Mountains, high plateaus, desert basins, river valleys, rolling uplands, and deep gorges woven together by the Columbia River and its tributaries make up the whole Columbia River Basin.
People have been drawn to the big and beautiful Columbia River Basin for thousands of years. During the last century, natural resource-based industries supported small, growing communities. Today, people still appreciate the basin's rural flavor and quality of life.
There are many beautiful places in this wonderful area of Oregon. In fact the whole basin was deemed a National Scenic Area. Besides the whole area there are two others natural areas that are very prominent. Among its many waterfalls Kalamath Falls is by far the most breathtaking. Not only can you enjoy the waterfall its self but also if you look hard enough you can see life happening all around you. If you travel up a lot higher you will see the natural trademark of the Pacific Northwest, Mt. Hood. With its 11,239 feet of beauty, what’s not to love? This amazing mountain is not only a natural area, but an area for recreation as well. From the river bellow to the mountains above the Columbia River Basin has a lot to offer.
Section 2: Population Centers
Most of the time, where humans gather, the surrounding landscape is altered in some way or another. Hu...
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... North America, steelheads are found in Pacific Ocean drainage from southern California through Alaska. In Oregon they are found throughout the Columbia River. The major factor causing steelhead population decline is freshwater habitat loss and degradation. This has resulted from three main factors: inadequate stream flows, blocked access to historic spawning and rearing areas due to dams, and human activities that discharge sediment and debris into waterways.
Bibliography:
1) Oregon’s Living Landscape: Strategies and opportunities to conserve bio-diversity, by the Oregon Diversity Project.
2) Endangered Plants and Animals of Oregon, by the Agriculture Experiment Station at Oregon State University.
3) Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems, by the National Research Council.
4) California’s Salomon and Steelhead, by Alan Lufkin.
5) www.cce.paisley.ac.uk
The positive aspects of ‘Lake’ Powell are few yet noteworthy. Glen Canyon Dam’s hydroelectric power-plant generates one thousand three hundred mega watts of electricity at full operation. That is enough power to supply three hundred fifty thousand homes. Glen Canyon Dam holds twenty seven million acre feet of water, which is equivalent to twice the Colorado River’s annual flow (Living Rivers: What about the hydroelectric loss?). One of the most valuable reasons for the dam to remain active is that “Lake Powell generates four hundred fifty five million dollars per year in tourist revenue, without this cash inflow, gas-and-motel towns . . . would undoubtedly wilt, and surrounding counties and states would lose a substantial tax base” (Farmer 185). These positive aspects are of no surprise considering they are the reason dams are built in the first place.
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first explored Montana in the early 1800s, they were awestruck by the open plains and delighted by the wide range of animals that roamed the land. After reaching the Great Falls, which is on the Missouri River in what is now Montana (Av2 books). Lewis wrote in his journal that it was “the grandest sight” that he had “ever beheld.” Today much of the landscape the Lewis and Clark crossed remains unchanged. The dense forest, rugged mountains, and rushing rivers are still abundant with fish and other wildlife.
U.S. Department of the interior, National Park Service. (2013). Endangered Species. Retrieved from website: http://www.nature.nps.gov/biology/endangeredspecies/index.cfm
Montana today is place that is still very similar that of a hundred years ago. Ranching and farming out east, mining still goes on in Butte, fishing is big along the western rivers, and now there is a new boom, with oil and natural gas throughout the state. As John Steinbeck said, “I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”
To tell how healthy a body of water is, you would need to measure the amount of dissolved oxygen (DO) in the water. Water is only able to dissolve a certain amount of oxygen to be classified as healthy. And once, the maximum amount of oxygen from the atmosphere that can dissolve in water, which is about 9.8 mg/l, is reached , no more oxygen will dissolve. This shows that water needs to maintain a certain amount of dissolved oxygen, typically 4-5 mg/l, for it to be classified as healthy and to support aquatic animals. If the dissolved oxygen levels drop below 5.0 mg/l, the aquatic life will be put under stress. The amount of dissolved oxygen in the water is affected by several physical and biological (natural) factors.
The Ohio River Basin covers the area about 203.940 miles, which is located in northeast of the United States surrounding the easternmost regions of the Mississippi Basin. The mainstream of the basin, the Ohio River itself, winds its way through 6 states or commonwealths around: Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. The basin consists of one mainstream, which serves as the largest tributary of the Mississippi river, and its various tributaries, among which the Allegany and Monongahela tributaries serves as the source water of the Ohio river mainstream, where the Ohio River begins at the confluence of these two tributaries. The Ohio River basin cover across 15 states that supports beyond 27 million people, equaling to 10% of the population in the United States, with drinking water, jobs and various kinds of recreational opportunities. [2]
On Saturday, April 25th, the class went on a field trip to different locations around the Blacksburg-Christiansburg area to view different land formations typical of the Virginia area. We visited a total of eight sites to include the Kentland Farms, VT airport, Blacksburg Golf Course, and several road side areas. The weather conditions that day were cloudy with intermittent showers making the ground very wet and reducing visibility across large landscapes for the majority of the day. This paper will serve a summary of each stop made and will tie all of the observations together into big picture concepts for the New River basin.
The region surrounding the Columbia River is one of the metaphors that can be found for the term “Buffalo Commons”. In this region a serious debate is taking place over the removal of some of the dams along the river. By shifting the economic dependency on the river to alternative sources there is a hope that the Native Salmon will be able to re populate and flourish in an area were they had once been plentiful (Ka-bye).
a Watershed is an area of land where all of the water that is under it, or drains off of it collects into the same place. Most of the watersheds in Idaho are part of the Columbia River Basin Watershed, which drains into the Pacific Ocean big cities use a lot of water and when they use too much the place they get the water from might run out.
Unlike most basins, the headwaters of the Klamath River are in the high desert of the Great Basin in eastern Oregon and travel south through the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Coast Mountain Range in north Central California, before finally draining into the Pacific Ocean in coastal California. The river basin spans a total of 5,700 square miles in an hourglass formation and includes parts of three counties in Oregon and five counties in California (Bureau of Reclamation 2016). The communities living in the “upside down” basin are as diverse as its climatic ranges in their cultures and livelihoods, but are bound by their reliance on the same sources of water.
This essay while very passionate is poorly done. The author, Edward Abbey, admits that he is a “butterfly chaser, googly eyed bleeding heart and wild conservative”(Abbey, 144). His constant appeals to nostalgia and tree hugging are repetitive and long-winded. However, as mentioned above, he is an expert in figurative language and connotation. Right from the beginning Abbey uses a great metaphor comparing Glen Canyon to the living heart of the canyon lands, and throws in another about the Colorado River being golden. He tries to form a beautiful picture of what Glen Canyon used to be like by sharing an experience that he and a buddy had almost 50 years ago. Although picturesque and ideal, we all understand that change is a natural part of both mankind and nature and that all things have an end.
There is something transcendent about it. The first time you indulge in its beautifully blue water and breathtaking natural surroundings, you are instantly mesmerized. To the Washoe Native Americans, Lake Tahoe is the center of their very existence. In respect to its beauty, the Washoe entitled the lake, “Da Ow ga” and believed Tahoe was the jewel of the Sierras. In my first experience with this jewel, Lake Tahoe captivated me the same way it has done to many others for thousands of years.
feature which makes nature seem as if people use it to turn to as an
The Mississippi river roughly 2,340 miles in length has turned into one of the most active waterways that we know today. According to Cornelia (2006), the Mississippi river once performed like a conveyor belt which transported nutrient-rich sediment downstream and deposited it along the barrier islands and wetlands before the flow of the river was controlled. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers have built dams and levees throughout the river since the 1820s to help protect against flooding. Consequently, this caused the barrier islands as well as the wetlands to disappear due to the lack of sediment that was being distributed to the location. Scientists have argued back and forth weather to allow the Mississippi river to change its course or should
The Shimna River As part of our A level Geography course I have decided to study the