Human Interaction with Rivers River very important to people and have attracted settlement for a number of reasons including: Water supply and fish Fertile Flood plain Transport and trade artery Defence Bridging points

Controlling Rivers Building dams and reservoirs to hold water and generate power Changing the course of rivers-straightening meanders to allow ships to navigate further Strengthen and heighten levees Not always predictable and floods can often wash away mankind best efforts

River Projects Reservoirs and Dams - Ardnacrusha HEP, Blessington lakes in Wicklow, Three Gorges Dam in China, Aswan Dam on the Nile Artificial levees on Mississippi and the Rhine Land reclamation in Netherlands Irrigation schemes – Central Valley USA Transport – 50km taken of the Rhine Tourism Marinas on Shannon

River Rhine

1,300km Source in the Alps and mouth at Rotterdam in the North Sea Chief Tributaries – Main, Neckar and Moselle Many main cities built along it including Duisberg, Cologne, Bonn, Strasbourg In the last 100 years vast changes made to Rhine Canal System created to link North Sea to Mediterranean and Black Sea River Straightened and shortened by 100km Dykes built to prevent flooding and islands that divided river were removed

This resulted in a deeper, shorter, straighter, faster flowing river (30% faster) In past when in flood in spread out over large flood plains but now 85% of flood plains has been lost to agriculture and buildings, including worlds largest inland port at Duisberg Dykes and levees have been built to protect this land and buildings

This has simply forced the river to flood farther downstream Also resulted in sediment being deposited on river bed which raises the river and necessitates the dykes being periodically raised also As ship sizes increased, the river was narrowed in places to make it deeper This meant the river began to flow faster so erosion increased The Rhine also flows through the polders in Holland which are always in danger of collapse

Since 1950’s HEP stations were built along upper section of the Rhine 13 stations built along the French-German Border in the Power-Project These dams trap sediments which decreased the rivers load and increase speed

In last 100 years the Rhine has flooded on an annual basis 1995 saw biggest flood Heavy rain and high temp saw snow melt so several tributaries and Rhine broke their banks City of Cologne was under 2 metres of water In the South of the Netherlands the dykes didn’t break but water reached the top of dykes with great risk of homes being under 6m of water Over 250,000 people and millions of animals had to be evacuated In other parts of Holland valuable horticultural, market gardening and dairy industry were destroyed