Page 210 Surface
Water on Earth
Nationwide
Rivers Inventory
At this
National Park Service site you can learn about rivers and streams of the United
States. Scroll down to the map and click on your state to find out more about
rivers in that state. This site has a description of each river and major stream
in the United States, and information such as the length of the river and its
reach. What is the longest river in your state?
Surf
Your Watershed
Visit this Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) site for information
about watersheds. You can locate your own watershed, adopt a watershed,
or find links to other environmental Web sites here. Click on index
of watershed indicators to find out about the health of aquatic resources
in the U.S. Then scroll down and click on locate your watershed to find
out how healthy your local rivers are.
Mississippi
River Basin Alliance
This
site is sponsored by a citizen’s group that unites environmental justice groups
and conservation groups around issues that impact the Mississippi River. Click
on about the river to learn more about the Mississippi River. How long is the
Mississippi?
Watershed
Protection – An Introduction
Go to
this EPA site to find out how to protect and restore aquatic ecosystems. Scroll
down and click on the watershed approach brochure to learn how EPA protects
rivers by first protecting the watershed. What are the components of watershed
protection?
United
States NWIS – Web Data for the Nation
The
USGS operates gauging stations in many rivers and streams across the United
States to measure stream flow. This site compiles the data from these stations
for many years. At this site you can select a state from a map and click on
it to find lists of counties, data stations, and basins in that state. For example,
if you click on Texas, then on a list of basins found in Texas, you will see
a list of all the watershed basins in Texas. Although it may take a little time,
you could use this site to make a graph of the stream flow of a local river
over time and compare it to other rivers in a state. This is a very interesting
site with lots of information about surface water.
page 220 Floods
and Flood Prevention
Floods
Go to
this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) site for information
on floods and flood forecasting. Scroll down and click on flash floods to find
out how flash floods occur and how to protect yourself from being caught in
such floods.
Why
Protect Floodplains?
Visit
this site by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to find out how natural
floodplains provide benefits such as natural flood and erosion control, water
quality maintenance, and groundwater recharge. Explore this site to learn more
about floods and floodplains. Do you live in a floodplain? Do you think the
federal government should provide floodplain insurance to those who construct
buildings in flood plains?
Mississippi
River Flood: 1993
At this
University of Akron site you can read all about the flooding along the Missouri
and Mississippi Rivers in 1993. Click on introduction to view a graphic of the
area affected by these floods, or click on causes of flooding to find out why
these rivers flooded that particular year.
NOVA
Online: Flood! Dealing with the Deluge
Visit
this site by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) to learn about flooding in
China and Egypt. Scroll down and read through the material to identify the advantages
and disadvantages of annual flooding in both countries. What Chinese river has
killed more people than any other river in the world?
Dartmouth
Flood Observatory
This
site, supported by NASA, is a research tool for the detection, mapping, measurement,
and analysis of extreme flood events worldwide. The site produces maps of current
extreme floods. Click on first geocoded image maps of extreme floods to find
out where in the world there have been major floods so far this year. Have there
been any floods in North America?
page 230 Wetlands
Wetlands
At this EPA site you can find out more about wetlands and what's being done to protect and preserve them. Use the information on this site to make a poster for your class, educating them about the danger of the loss of wetlands.
page 234 Lake
Baikal
Lake
Baikal Homepage
At this
site you can learn more about Lake Baikal. Click on the world beneath Baikal
to learn more about the lake’s inhabitants. Then click on ecology to find out
more about Lake Baikal’s ecological problems. What causes the greatest negative
impacts on the ecology of Lake Baikal today?
Lake
Baikal
This
is a good site for information on Lake Baikal, including lake and watershed
characteristics, geology, biology, and human history of the area surrounding
the lake. Click on human history to learn more about the cause of pollution
in Lake Baikal.
Lake
Baikal – A Touchstone for Global Change and Rift Studies
Visit
this USGS site to learn more about the geology of Lake Baikal. Although it is
covered by thick sediment, the bottom of Lake Baikal is a rift. At approximately
8 to 9 km deep, this rift is one of the deepest active rifts on Earth. Why are
geologists so interested in studying the rift underneath Lake Baikal?
