Rivers of America

Rivers of America
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2006-09
Genre: Nature
ISBN:

Photographer Tim Palmer presents hundreds of images of the U.S.'s rivers and discusses their protection and the life within them.

River Republic

River Republic
Author: Daniel McCool
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2012
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0231161301

Daniel McCool chronicles the surging grassroots movement to bring America's rivers back to life and ensure they remain pristine for future generations. This book confirms the surprising news that America's rivers are indeed returning to a healthier, free-flowing condition. Through passion and dedication, ordinary people are reclaiming the American landscape, forming a nation-wide "river republic" of concerned citizens from all backgrounds and sectors of society. McCool profiles the individuals he calls "instigators," who initiated the fight for these waterways and have succeeded in the near-impossible task of challenging and changing the status quo. He ties the history, culture, and fate of America to its rivers and presents their restoration as a microcosm mirroring American beliefs, livelihoods, and an increasing awareness of our shared environmental fate.

Rivers in History

Rivers in History
Author: Christof Mauch
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2008-07-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0822973413

Throughout history, rivers have run a wide course through human temporal and spiritual experience. They have demarcated mythological worlds, framed the cradle of Western civilization, and served as physical and psychological boundaries among nations. Rivers have become a crux of transportation, industry, and commerce. They have been loved as nurturing providers, nationalist symbols, and the source of romantic lore but also loathed as sites of conflict and natural disaster.Rivers in History presents one of the first comparative histories of rivers on the continents of Europe and North America in the modern age. The contributors examine the impact of rivers on humans and, conversely, the impact of humans on rivers. They view this dynamic relationship through political, cultural, industrial, social, and ecological perspectives in national and transnational settings. As integral sources of food and water, local and international transportation, recreation, and aesthetic beauty, rivers have dictated where cities have risen, and in times of flooding, drought, and war, where they've fallen. Modern Western civilizations have sought to control rivers by channeling them for irrigation, raising and lowering them in canal systems, and damming them for power generation. Contributors analyze the regional, national, and international politicization of rivers, the use and treatment of waterways in urban versus rural environments, and the increasing role of international commissions in ecological and commercial legislation for the protection of river resources. Case studies include the Seine in Paris, the Mississippi, the Volga, the Rhine, and the rivers of Pittsburgh. Rivers in History is a broad environmental history of waterways that makes a major contribution to the study, preservation, and continued sustainability of rivers as vital lifelines of Western culture.

Southern Waters

Southern Waters
Author: Craig E. Colten
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2014-10-13
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0807156523

Water has dominated images of the South throughout history, from Hernando de Soto's 1541 crossing of the Mississippi to tragic scenes of flooding throughout the Gulf South after Hurricane Katrina. But these images tell only half the story: as urban, industrial, and population growth create unprecedented demands on water in the South, the problems of pollution and water shortages grow ever more urgent. In Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance, Craig E. Colten addresses how the South -- in an environment fraught with uncertainty -- can navigate the twin risks of too much water and not enough. From the arrival of the first European settlers, the South's inhabitants have pursued a course of maximum exploitation and control of the area's plentiful waters, investing widely in wetland drainage and massive flood-control projects. Disputes over southern waterways go back nearly as far: obstruction of fish migration by mill dams prompted new policies to protect aquatic life as early as the colonial era. Colten argues that such conflicts, which have heightened dramatically since the explosive urbanization of the mid-twentieth century, will only become more frequent and intense, making the shift toward sustainable use a national imperative. In tracing the evolving uses and abuses of southern waters, Colten offers crucial insights into the complex historical geography of water throughout the region. A masterful analysis of the ways in which past generations harnessed and consumed water, Southern Waters also stands as a guide to adapting our water usage to cope with the looming shortage of this once-abundant resource.

River Basins of the American West

River Basins of the American West
Author: Char Miller
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780870715747

"Examining water issues through the lens of major Western U.S. watersheds, River Basins of the American West explores why water has been, and remains, the West's most essential and controversial subject." "Char Miller has organized writings collected from the pages of High Country News, the voice of Western environmental issues, into sections defined by the great watersheds of the West. Arguably, these drainage systems form the real boundaries of the West, and current water conflicts have their roots in development that ignored this reality." "Contributors to this book - among them activists, scholars, scientists, and some of the nation's finest environmental journalists - probe the intense differences and disagreements over water rights across the West, and present the positive developments toward a lasting solution to the most fraught issue the West faces." --Book Jacket.

The Geography of Transport Systems

The Geography of Transport Systems
Author: Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1136777326

Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.

Where the River Flows

Where the River Flows
Author: Sean W. Fleming
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0691191824

Rivers are essential to every aspect of civilization, yet how many understand how they work? Fleming takes readers on a journey along our planet's waterways, providing a scientist's reflections on the profound interrelationships that rivers have with landscapes, ecosystems, and societies.