Why rivers shouldn’t look like this | It’s Complicated

Shared on Mastodon ClimateJustice by JdeB 🇳🇱

All of the flooding usually blames on 'global warming''. More likely due to man's interference in other areas.

Crisis?

Don't mess with nature. It will mess with you less.

0:45 no, that’s what you tend to imagine when you think of rivers. There’s a whole wide world outside of Europe, and most of our rivers are natural.

The premise of this video is that climate change causes floods, which cause flooding of human constrained rivers – this is simply incorrect or ignorant from a geomorphological and scientific perspective. All rivers are prone to flooding without exception. When rivers flood the water in the river takes the path of least resistance to its flow. Hence, rivers will naturally bifurcate and meander depending on where the river is on the hypsometric curve. Young rivers have a steeper curve, old ones have a more shallow curve. This is for unbound rivers. Human interference in river systems leads to the banking up of flood water and catastrophic floods. It has nothing to do with climate change. Roman cities had human induced floods way before humans were banging on about climate change because they too tried to control their rivers.

This is my hometown river, Radegast, it's meandering nicely to the Baltic: 53,7437941, 11,0673878

I thought water chooses the path of least resistance?

Funny how they ignored the thames, which whilst polluted more than your toilet after a curry, it is still 'natural' in regards to it's overall flow. This is where the tell tale U around canary wharf came from.

Major flooding is not new, it’s better documented and the costs are higher because there are more people. Per capita it likely killed more people in the past

in southern scotland rivers were remolded to become fast flowing for hydro power for knitwear mills along with salmon runs to slow then speed up flow. Now with forestry work up stream reducing water holding its resulted in flooding alot more and more damaging. The mills are gone but the river remains the same, the channels and dams used for power and still there or blocked off. Flood defences are being finished at cost of millions but work outside of the towns is not being carried out to reduce flooding so unless done flooding will happen again.

it's not complicated to understand that a river with 100x twists and turns, can hold 10000x more water before it floods the surroundings.

So, it sounds as if you are calling for man-made structures to solve the problem caused by man.

I feel like most things go back to you should’ve left it alone

I visited a renatured stream in Germany only a few months after the renature process. It was spring.
There were uncountable numbers of young minnows swarming The shallow water. The bullhead and lamprey returned (adults, must have populated from elsewhere. Big trouts were hunting the smaller fish.

The ice bird was already feeding its young in the wall that was exposed in the winter floods.

This example showed, just how incredibly fast the animals can return when the habitat is restored.

It's not complicated. People ruined the land, the land strikes back.

there is no climate crisis!!!!!

River should be meandering. This video is really important 👏

The simple answer is becuase the floods

And let more BEAVERS do the work for humans?

Same problem here in Florida except it’s flat and it floods everywhere

That's an interesting problem. We don't have that type of arrangement in Los Angeles. That is to say we do have our concrete river , but upstream our water is coming straight down from the mountains.

Our mindset is the issue. Even eco-conservative have the same defeating mindset.
When we moved from the cave to the hut, we began to separate ourselves from nature. By the time we move to palaces, we were no longer a part of nature. In fact, the titanic, man vs nature proves our arrogance.
Today, because of that, the ego of a normal person is bigger than julius Caesar. We will not go back.

I don't think its that clear cut, that human needs have caused more flooding. Most of the time, the purpose of altering flow of water has been to manage floods and to have a stable ground water level for irrigation. Then every so often comes a flood event so big, that it fails.

It’s honestly such a miracle that the LA river here near me has been left untouched and allowed retain its natural flow

Should have mentioned the amount of homes being purposely built on floodplains, and the insurance scandal which effects insurance premiums for everyone, not just those silly enough to buy on a floodplain.

Imagine if we tried to do what the Netherlands did in this country? You’d just get bogged down with nimbys and bureaucratic nonsense for 30 years before anything actually got done

It is possible to increase flow of water in a river without widening it or changing its course by placing large stones in the form Schaubergers funnel. It also cleans up water and creates river bed interesting for fish.

So this video isn’t so much about straight rivers but about slowing down the flow of water into rivers, which is obvious to most people but not most farmers or developers.