Geography 110H
Watershed assignment

The rules for this are quite simple. Pick a case study pertaining to a river, watershed, flood event, or environmental problem related to a river or watershed. The bookmark list for this week includes a number of good examples and is grouped into a list of case studies, including the death of the Aral Sea, the Three Gorges dam project in China, the upper Mississippi basin floods of 1993, the 1996 controlled flood on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, the South Florida/Everglades ecosystem and its deterioration as a result of the past century of plumbing and drainage work by the Corps of Engineers (together with the impacts of farming and urban development), the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada River in India (one of the world's great rivers, in case you haven't heard of it...), the Aswan dam and its effects on the Nile River... there are a few others as well. If you choose to look at the Mississippi delta and the Atchafalaya River (in case you didn't know, the eventual fate of the lower Mississippi is to abandon its present course and flow down the channel of the Atchafalaya instead, which will cause all kinds of disruption for life in New Orleans and everywher else in the vicinity), there's another source, not online, that you should consult. Look up The Control of Nature by John McPhee; its first chapter tells this story very well and is worth your attention. If you're interested in the Nile and the Aswan Dam, check the library catalogue as well; I wasn't terribly satisfied with the links I found, but in fact there's a tremendous amount of information available on this topic.

I will not assign topics to individuals, but I request that if you choose a topic, you post your choice to the Bulletin Board. Also please check the Bulletin Board before you select a topic so we can avoid duplication as much as possible.

After you pick your case study, write a short analysis of the story that describes the regional setting in terms of the characteristics of the watershed and hydrology and then summarize the problem or issue(s) addressed in the case study. If possible, find a map of the watershed showing the drainage system and find some background information on the physical characteristics, land cover, and climate of the watershed itself. Possibly your river will also be amont those listed on the site featuring water balance information for major rivers of the world. (Note: the Yangtze is also known as the Changjiang.) If necessary, consult a world atlas or look up another source in the library to find the correct location for the watershed in question.