Madeira Mudslides: British Woman Missing As Death Toll Rises To 38 Following Flooding | World News | Sky News

Sky News VIDEO

Madeira Mudslides: British Woman Missing As Death Toll Rises To 38 Following Flooding | World News | Sky News

Portugal rushes aid to Madeira after deadly floods

The Portuguese military has sent specialist rescue teams to the island of Madeira, where at least 40 people are known to have died in rainstorms.Tonnes of mud and stones were brought down the slopes of the island, flooding the streets of the regional capital, Funchal, and other towns. Officials fear the death toll could rise. Water, power and phones were cut in some areas. PM Jose Socrates, who is in Madeira, said he would "do everything to help".

BBC News - Portugal rushes aid to Madeira after deadly floods

Climate change threatens Ganges, Niger and other mighty rivers

 

This map shows the change in run-off inferred from streamflow records worldwide between 1948 and 2004, with bluish colors indicating more streamflow and reddish colors less. Graphic: Journal of Climate, modified by UCAR

Some of the mightiest rivers on the planet, including the Ganges, the Niger, and the Yellow river in China, are drying up because of climate change, a study of global waterways warned yesterday.

Climate change threatens Ganges, Niger and other mighty rivers | Environment | The Guardian

World's major rivers 'drying up'

 

Water levels in some of the world's most important rivers have declined significantly over the past 50 years, US researchers say.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | World's major rivers 'drying up'

Grand Canyon flooded

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Grand Canyon flooded

British Dam Society

 

You can find out about:

• some of the different Types of dams
• their Uses
• what Spillways & Outlets do
• professionals who Design dams
• methods of Building them
• how People and Environment are affected by them
• how their Safety is checked
• and Links to other interesting web-sites

Link to British Dam Society

Three Gorges Dam

Interactive site from FT.com

Link to 571cc608-87e4-11dc-9464-0000779fd2ac.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

River Discharge Lab VIRTUAL RIVER FIELDWORK

The goal of this exercise is to introduce you to some basic concepts about how rivers work.The term river describes water moving through a well-defined channel.

Link to River Discharge Lab

3 stages of a river

Stages Of A River

Collection of images to illustrate the 3 stages of a river


SlideShare Link

Source of the Amazon River

Geographers long agreed that, while the Amazon might be the world’s largest river by volume, the longest was likely the Nile. In 2007, however, the BBC reported that a team of Brazilian researchers challenged that long-held belief. After an expedition to Peru to locate the Amazon’s precise source, the team described a different starting point. The team claimed that the river originated not in northern Peru, where it had been thought to begin, but in southern Peru, somewhere on snowcapped Mount Mismi (or Nevado Mismi). The team narrowed down the starting point to one of two places, but concluded that either one would nudge the Amazon’s length past that of the Nile

Link to EO Newsroom: New Images - Source of the Amazon River

Is this the world's most polluted river?

It was once a gently flowing river, where fishermen cast their nets, sea birds came to feed and natural beauty left visitors spellbound. Villagers collected water for their simple homes and rice paddies thrived on its irrigation channels. Today, the Citarum is a river in crisis, choked by the domestic waste of nine million people and thick with the cast-off from hundreds of factories. So dense is the carpet of refuse that the tiny wooden fishing craft which float through it are the only clue to the presence of water.

Their occupants no longer try to fish. It is more profitable to forage for rubbish they can salvage and trade - plastic bottles, broken chair legs, rubber gloves - risking disease for one or two pounds a week if they are lucky. On what was United Nations World Environment Day, the Citarum, near the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, displayed the shocking abuse that mankind has subjected it to.

More than 500 factories, many of them producing textiles which require chemical treatment, line the banks of the 200-mile river, the largest waterway in West Java, spewing waste into the water. On top of the chemicals go all the other kinds of human detritus from the factories and the people who work there. There is no such luxury as a rubbish collection service here. Nor are there any modern toilet facilities. Everything goes into the river. The filthy water is sucked into the rice paddies, while families risk their health by collecting it for drinking, cooking and washing. Twenty years ago, this was a place of beauty, and the river still served its people well. As one local man, Arifin, recalled: "Our wives did their washing there and our children swam."

Its demise began with rapid industrialisation during the late 1980s. The mighty Citarum soon became a garbage bin for the factories. And the doomsday effect will spread. It is one of two major rivers that feed Lake Saguling, where the French have built the largest power generator in West Java. Experts predict that as the river chokes, its volume will decrease and the generator will not function properly. The area will be plunged into darkness. But at least the factories will be stilled and their waste will stop flowing.

Link to Is this the world's most polluted river? | the Daily Mail

Three Gorges Dam, China

The longest river in Asia, the Yangtze River brings mixed blessings to China. Although it meets the water needs of millions of people, the river regularly overflows its banks. In the twentieth century alone, Chinese authorities estimated, the river claimed the lives of 300,000 people. To protect some 15 million residents and 3.7 million acres (roughly 14,970 square kilometers) in the lower Yangtze floodplains, China began construction on the Three Gorges Dam in 1994. Like the river itself, the dam appears to be a mixed blessing: the reservoir was expected to submerge about 632 square kilometers (244 square miles) of land and force the relocation of more than a million people. The reservoir was anticipated to submerge ecologically and culturally important sites in the three gorges—Qutang, Wu Xia, and Xiling—that were the dam’s namesake.

These images show the Yangtze River in the vicinity of the Three Gorges Dam (lower right). Landsat 7 acquired the top image on November 7, 2006, after the main wall was complete. Landsat 5 acquired the bottom image on April 17, 1987, several years before construction on the dam began. In the top image, the dam’s main wall appears as a thin, buff-colored line crossing the water. The water body balloons out markedly in the later image—evidence of the rising water level. The water has backed up and expanded tributaries well upstream of the dam (upper left of image).

Link to EO Newsroom: New Images - Three Gorges Dam, China

The Bradshaw Model

Link to IB Geography - The Bradshaw Model

Animations

ANIMATIONS available on King Edward VI 's five ways school website.

GCSE Geography

BBC EDUCATION SCOTLAND has a good 14+ Geography page. Topics covered include

• COASTLINE - Physical Environment Human Impact
  
• DEVELOPMENT and HEALTH Physical and human factors that influence Development. Social and Economic Indicators of Development.
  
• HAZARDS - Floods and Volcanoes
  
• EUROPE - Environmental Inequalities Rivers and Coasts
  
• GLOBAL POPULATION Measuring data Collecting Data and Migration
  
• RIVERS - Hydrological Cycle and the Drainage Basin