What is a River
Rain water, after touching the ground, tries to find its way to lowest available depression or ditch.
when first depression fills, water overflows and extra water finds next closest ditch.
with every rain, new water dissolves and transports some extra earth along it, over the time the chain of connected puddles transforms into well defined stream bed.
over millions of years, this continuous pattern of water defines the path for a runoff stream, that drains the rainwater as it arrives.
these streams follow a random path in start, and when they accidently meet another stream, they join together.
a tree of such streams keeps growing downstream and so does the amount of water it contains.
when a stream is big enough, we call it a river. although an intermittent river , ( a river that flows only in a rainy season). I will come back to continuous rivers after covering some related definitions and topics.
there are few laws that water strictly follows.
1. water always flow towards lower area, so direction of strem tells which area is lower than other. this slope may be so slight that naked eye cannot feel it, but water feels it easily.
Don't think that water is intelligent, it is just lazy.
Well since laziest people are good at discovering the easit way to do things, exactly the same way, water, due to its weight cannot rise at its own, it always drops and flows towards lower side. using this property, people invented water based leveling tools for construction and measurements several thousand years ago, that are still in use. Such tools were used in construction of Egyptian pyramids, and haven't changed a lot over the time.
2. River never flows backwards, towards higher ground. it is a common wisdom, but has solid scientific logic to support it. there are some exceptions but it happens due to special situation following the same underlying law.
Rain water, after touching the ground, tries to find its way to lowest available depression or ditch.
when first depression fills, water overflows and extra water finds next closest ditch.
with every rain, new water dissolves and transports some extra earth along it, over the time the chain of connected puddles transforms into well defined stream bed.
over millions of years, this continuous pattern of water defines the path for a runoff stream, that drains the rainwater as it arrives.
these streams follow a random path in start, and when they accidently meet another stream, they join together.
a tree of such streams keeps growing downstream and so does the amount of water it contains.
when a stream is big enough, we call it a river. although an intermittent river , ( a river that flows only in a rainy season). I will come back to continuous rivers after covering some related definitions and topics.
1. water always flow towards lower area, so direction of strem tells which area is lower than other. this slope may be so slight that naked eye cannot feel it, but water feels it easily.
Don't think that water is intelligent, it is just lazy.
Well since laziest people are good at discovering the easit way to do things, exactly the same way, water, due to its weight cannot rise at its own, it always drops and flows towards lower side. using this property, people invented water based leveling tools for construction and measurements several thousand years ago, that are still in use. Such tools were used in construction of Egyptian pyramids, and haven't changed a lot over the time.
2. River never flows backwards, towards higher ground. it is a common wisdom, but has solid scientific logic to support it. there are some exceptions but it happens due to special situation following the same underlying law.
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