86
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
The water in any river draining the sea is infinitely recycle-able (from rain replenishment), whereas the salt from any terrestrial source is not. So salty rivers, if any, won't exist permanently. ...
- 14.2k
46
votes
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 ...
- 3,474
35
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
The already accepted answer is already covering the "real" answer as far as I'm concerned, and while you won't find many (any?) saline rivers in the traditional sense, we do have underwater &...
32
votes
Accepted
How do oases form in the middle of the desert?
Oasis are places where aquifers are connected to the surface. The source of the water in the aquifer however can be hundreds of miles away in areas that do get significant rainfall.
The trick is ...
- 6,878
29
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
The Pecos River in Texas, USA may arguably fit the description of a "saltwater river". A point of argument is what is considered to be "saltwater". For comparison, here are some ...
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 ...
- 23.1k
26
votes
Where does the Amazon River really begin?
From an Earth Science standpoint, it's meaningless to ask about the "source" of a river in this way. The "source" of a river is the rainfall within its drainage basin, which percolates down into ...
- 3,548
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 ...
- 390
25
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
Water from the Caspian sea, with a salinity of 1.2%, is constantly flowing into Garabogazköl, where the water eventually evaporates and leaves the salt behind. Of course, the situation is not ...
19
votes
Accepted
Do dams reduce the flow of river downstream?
Once a dam has been constructed in a river, the natural flow of water will be disrupted.
You correctly state that initially there will be a period required for the dam to fill. Until then, little of ...
- 24.6k
18
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
Here in New York City we have a salt "river". It is called the "East River" and it separates part of Long Island (Brooklyn and Queens) from the island of Manhattan and the mainland (The Bronx).
...
- 297
16
votes
How is it possible to use up the water in a region?
This is a really complex problem and would require a really detailed explanation about atmospheric circulation, meteorology and hydrology.
The short answer to your question is that water is going ...
- 1,258
15
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
I live near a river named Salz, flowing both warm and salty on the north slope of the Pyrenees south of Carcassonne. In historical times it was boiled dry for salt. See Les Sources de Salz
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14
votes
Rocks sparking under water
Is this possible?
Definitely.
I know you can get sparks from some rocks and minerals - but granite boulders [?]
Yep. Quartz is one of those minerals that "sparks". It is piezoelectric, and ...
- 23.1k
14
votes
Accepted
How is it possible to use up the water in a region?
You're making a mistake, at least for the second case:
In the second case, the water ends up as rain, presumably within a few hundred kilometers of the evaporation point.
You cannot model a dry ...
- 11.6k
14
votes
Do dams reduce the flow of river downstream?
You're correct that simply putting a dam in place, once its lake is filled, doesn't change the average flow downstream by more than a few percent (those few percent can be lost to increased ...
- 5,800
14
votes
How do oases form in the middle of the desert?
There are two types of oases: natural and human made.
Natural oases form when springs, created when underground aquifers allow fresh water to pool or flow on the ground surface of deserts, creating a ...
- 24.6k
13
votes
Accepted
Does the 0m elevation height of a Digital Elevation Model (Copernicus DEM) correspond to mean sea level?
From the website you linked:
Coordinate Reference System: Horizontal WGS84-G1150 (EPSG 4326) (DGED & DTED format), (EPSG 3035) for continental Europe and UTM , (EPSG 32740, 32622, 32738, 32620) ...
- 15.4k
12
votes
How do long rivers exist?
I will attempt at rephrasing your interesting question after these considerations:
At the continental scale, flowing water has no significant inertia, so water flows following the maximum slope. A ...
- 1,723
12
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
There are salt water rivers in different places of the world where ground water flows in contact with salt layers.
There is a river in Catalonia named Ribera Salada (meaning salty river in Catalan). ...
- 829
11
votes
Accepted
Is there a special name for along-course elevation profiles of rivers, and where you can you find them?
I guess there are multiple names, but I know it as the river's "long profile", and it is used in academic papers (one example here and a search in google scholar here). But you can find similar ...
- 17.6k
11
votes
If water is a renewable resource, why is there water scarcity?
What I miss in the other answers is water quality.
Even is there is sufficient water available it is often of insufficient quality for the purpose you want it for:
We often don't drink straight out ...
- 2,679
11
votes
Why isn't the Amazon River in the top for the highest hydropower potential
It has exceptionally little elevation change. 2000 miles (3218 km) from the mouth to the Peru border there is only 300 feet (91 m) of elevation change; an average grade of 0.15 inch per mile (1 in ...
- 1,033
10
votes
What keeps water from sinking into earth?
So what prevents that happening on earth?
Not much. Quite a lot of water is recycled into the Earth's crust and mantle.
So the only thing that prevents the water from sinking in is the temperature, ...
- 23.1k
10
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
Here in Western Australia we have many salt water streams running through farmland affected by dry land salinity. It's a huge problem where land cleared for agriculture has experienced rising water ...
- 101
10
votes
Accepted
Lake outflow forming a "reverse delta"?
When the flow of water in a river accelerates, it can pick up more sediment from the river bed and transport it downstream. Alternatively, when the flow slows down, the transport capacity drops and ...
- 17.6k
9
votes
Are there any saltwater rivers on Earth?
There is an area with several salt rivers and wide salt streams that exists in Russia - it's in Yakutia (Sakha Republic), part of Siberia.
Water of Solyanka River (flowing in to the great Lena River) ...
- 191
9
votes
Are there any DIY conductivity sensors that will hold calibration for long periods? {multiple months}
I've built DIY conductivity probes for subglacial measurements. Unfortunately my sensors remain under ~100m of ice so I haven't be able to recover them to check the calibration, but for the same ...
- 17.6k
9
votes
Accepted
If water is a renewable resource, why is there water scarcity?
I would summarize the main factors that can lead to water scarcity in the following points:
Increase in demand: As population grows, there is more overall water consumption. The rise is enhanced by ...
- 17.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible