46
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Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
The Okavango River is a good example of this. It drains into a swampy delta in the middle of the Kalahari desert:
The Okavango Delta, CC BY Justin Hall.
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36
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
The Colorado River frequently fails to reach the Gulf of California, mostly due to diversion to agricultural and metropolitan uses upstream.
This National Geographic post from 2014 elaborates on the ...
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28
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
The concepts you are looking for are two categories of drainage basins, endhoreic basins and cryptorheic basins.
Endhoreic basins are drainage basins that do not drain to the oceans, either above ...
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26
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
There are rivers that don't flow into seas or lakes if you consider influent rivers. Which are rivers that loose water to the ground (seeps into aquifers). For example "big lost river" of ...
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14
votes
Could a massive flood have formed the Grand Canyon?
tl;dr: no.
Long answer:
First of all, like mentioned by others in the comments, you would need some physical mechanism to take a whole lot of water, evaporate it, and drop it at once at a place ...
- 23.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Could a massive flood have formed the Grand Canyon?
In addition to all of the above there are meanders inn the Grand Canyon which are hydraulic outcomes of 'minimum energy flow configurations'. This constrains the discharge rates that are possible - to ...
- 14.2k
7
votes
Accepted
What is serpentinization, in the context of disappearance of surface water on Mars?
does serpentinization just refer to the formation of some hydrated minerals that happen to be of a class that is historically been referred to as serpentinite or it's subgroup
Yes. In simple terms, ...
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7
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
Just locally to me, there are the Carson and Humboldt rivers, which drain into sinks of those names - the Carson Sink and the Humboldt Sink. There's also the Quinn River, which drains into the Black ...
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6
votes
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Concept of artesian aquifers and pressure is not clear.
The red line or piezometric line is the level to which the water wants to rise - if it were allowed to reach hydrostatic equilibrium. Artesian conditions are anywhere where a confined aquifer sits ...
- 316
6
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
A must-to-mention is Amu Darya. It was once flowing to Aral sea, but since ~1950s the water has been used for irrigation, and now its waters do not reach the sea. (And as a result, there it little ...
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6
votes
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How are boundary conditions considered in PDEs?
In any solution to a PDE, whether analytical or numerical, you will always need as many BCs as the number of derivative steps. For examples:
$$dY/dt = k Y$$
needs one BC while
$$\partial Y/\partial t =...
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6
votes
Accepted
Why was the flooding in Derna, Libya so catastrophic?
I hesitate to write this answer as I am neither a metereologist, nor a hydrologist, nor a civil engineer with expertise in dams.
From what I gather from news reports and available data, the proximate ...
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5
votes
What is serpentinization, in the context of disappearance of surface water on Mars?
Serpentinization is a system of,
chemical reactions which convert anhydrous ferromagnesian silicate minerals (pyroxene, olivine) into hydrous silicate minerals (serpentine) plus some other ...
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5
votes
What is meant by inverted water table?
An Inverted or Perched water table is a water table that is above the main or regional water table in an unconfined aquifer. The perched water table is generally above a layer of low permeability ...
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5
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
The Luni River of India does not meet any sea, ocean, lake, or any other body of water. Most Indian rivers meet larger rivers or flow into the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian sea. This river starts at an ...
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4
votes
Accepted
How to obtain the saturation point of a soil layer from the volumetric soil water content data?
I assume you mean sensors that measure volumetric soil water content. The answer will depend on the amount of precipitation and the permeability of the soil. Soils don't reach full saturation in some ...
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4
votes
Accepted
How are aquifers found and traced?
Aquifers are relatively permeable zones of material that transmit water. Common aquifer materials include layers of unconsolidated sedimentary rock, like sands and gravels; and poorly cemented “...
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4
votes
How far can water wick up above the capillary fringe in sediment or soil?
The vadose zone can be on the order of meters, depending on the soil type (higher with finer soils). The maximum height of capillary rise ($h_c$) occurs where capillary suction head is equal to the ...
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4
votes
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The rock that gives birth to quartz sand
In only one minute of presentation there isn't time for detailed discussion, so one has to make broad generalizations which, on closer inspection, aren't quite true. It is true that most sand is made ...
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2
votes
Unrealistic solution for advection-diffusion-reaction PDE with heterogeneous porous media
It's not clear exactly what is being modelled here, but it seems to me that there are two ways in which the concentration can 'go negative'. Firstly, the rate of change of concentration can be massive,...
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2
votes
Accepted
Why is fluid pressure in a fractured rock reservoir only dependent on hydrostatic pressure?
Fluid (or 'pore') pressure does not depend only on hydrostatic pressure — it also depends on stratigraphy, fluid content, and the geological history of the rock.
The fluid 'stack' can be thought of ...
- 11k
2
votes
Coupling recharge with 1D groundwater flow model
If you are not interested in the vertical flow occurring in your aquifer (which I assume is the case) then one can indeed add the recharge to the existing head!
In groundwater issues, we often assume ...
- 126
2
votes
comparing use of Laplace equation with diffusion equation to simulate flow of fluid/water through porous media?
The Laplace equation, (d^2 Ψ)/(dx^2 )+(d^2 Ψ)/(dy^2 )+(d^2 Ψ)/(dz^2 )=0, is just a steady state 3D flow equation. It's a black box conservation of hydraulic potential. Diffusion doesn't come into it. ...
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2
votes
Hydrology - Flowrate vs. radius of influence
I think your confusion is because you are keeping the head fixed. As you increase Q at fixed T the drawdown curve will become steeper when r1, h1, and h2 are fixed. That means r2 will move towards the ...
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2
votes
Is there any river that does not discharge into larger body of water?
Locally to me, the Nailbourne rises at a spring in the small town of Lyminge, in the Kent Downs, and then sinks back into the ground shortly after passing through the village of Elham (except in a ...
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2
votes
Accepted
Can we define "drainage density" for a soil column (point-scale)?
Fundamentally it doesn't make sense to describe the point scale model with hillslope length and drainage density. If you are looking to model a soil column, you could use Darcy's law or Richard's ...
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2
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How to define the lower boundary conditions: seepage face and unit gradient in terms of soil volumetric water content?
It's been many months since August, but maybe someone else will find this useful.
Like a lot of questions in hydrology - the appropriate boundary condition is defined by accurately characterizing the ...
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vote
How are aquifers found and traced?
Aquifers are detected by boreholes or by water divining. Water divining is a very unscientific method which so far has no rational explanation, yet is often successful. I put this down to the fact ...
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