The worst river violations ever...

[RobA]

...maybe the whole island rose from the sea so it is a still draining sea bed...or, as maybe as you said, it is just wrong...

-Rob A>

[Lwaxana]

Oy Vey... the gods must have been drunk when they made this continent.

[zenram]

Well, i would like to go to the "River School, could you enlighten us?, please?

A list of mistakes or something, besides the scale, of course.

[NeonKnight]

Well, i would like to go to the "River School, could you enlighten us?, please?

A list of mistakes or something, besides the scale, of course.

Rivers flow down hill and follow the path of least resistance. As a result, using the map above as a example, a river can not flow from one sea to another sea (this would require the river to flow uphill at some point).


Another example is a river splitting as it flows. Rivers simple do not do this. Now, river can certainly have islands in them, so a river can 'split' around an island but it will rejoin itself downsteam. And these islands will not be more a few miles in length.

The only times a river will 'split' will be in the case of either a River Delta (The Largest real world example being the Nile Delta (http://www.specialtyinterests.net/map_nile2nubia.JPG)), or during a time of flooding as a river is gorged with excess water and can split and flow down new paths as it overflows, but this will be temporary at a best as as soon as the excess water has flowed out, it will return to a single channel.

This is the same reason a lake can have many incoming rivers but only a single out flow. If it had more that one out flow it would drain to the point where the level would fall to only one outflow.

[zenram]

Woooww, thanks, Are there some post with the river rules?
Or this are all? XD

[Gamerprinter]

There is somewhere on this site, either the tutorials forum or the reference forum, I did a search for it this morning, but couldn't find that page - I know its there, but I didn't respond to your post here, as I couldn't find. I expected one of the CLs to point it out, but so far only SG has posted, and basically gave you the "watered down" version. If I or someone else finds that list of river violations, we will certainly post a link here. Like I said, I did a quick search and couldn't find it??!!!

Go look yourself, you might find it, in case its deep in the forum somewhere...

GP

[waldronate]

Rivers flow down hill and follow the path of least resistance.

I think that it would be clearer if "least resistance" was "steepest descent" instead. That way people don't have to understand how water is supposed to behave. Most people I know of think of going down steep hills as a back and forth process, while most water parcels I know prefer the "jump over the edge" philosophy. It's a misapplication of experience on the part of people.

An an aside for bizarre river behavior, it's possible for a "river" to flow from the sea inland if there is a large dry inland basin lower than sea level that can sustain a higher evaporation rate than the inflow amount. In the Afar Basin in Africa there are small streams that are being forced through the rock from the ocean. Soon (geologically speaking) there will be a river and soon after that an inlet like the Red Sea. Consider also the the Mediterranean Sea. It has a net influx of water from the oceans because of its high evaporation rate. Choke off the Straits of Gibraltar and there would be a "river" flowing from the Red Sea through the Suez canal (plus all of those regular rivers that would be wandering off into a desolate wasteland).

[NeonKnight]

I think that it would be clearer if "least resistance" was "steepest descent" instead. That way people don't have to understand how water is supposed to behave. Most people I know of think of going down steep hills as a back and forth process, while most water parcels I know prefer the "jump over the edge" philosophy. It's a misapplication of experience on the part of people.

An an aside for bizarre river behavior, it's possible for a "river" to flow from the sea inland if there is a large dry inland basin lower than sea level that can sustain a higher evaporation rate than the inflow amount. In the Afar Basin in Africa there are small streams that are being forced through the rock from the ocean. Soon (geologically speaking) there will be a river and soon after that an inlet like the Red Sea. Consider also the the Mediterranean Sea. It has a net influx of water from the oceans because of its high evaporation rate. Choke off the Straits of Gibraltar and there would be a "river" flowing from the Red Sea through the Suez canal (plus all of those regular rivers that would be wandering off into a desolate wasteland).

True steepest descent normally wins over least resistance, but even a granite cliff will lose eventually to the sandstone plains it abuts next too

[waldronate]

True steepest descent normally wins over least resistance, but even a granite cliff will lose eventually to the sandstone plains it abuts next too

Not until the sandstone wears away enough to become the path of steepest descent.

[Ascension]

There's a thread by Redrobes in the Tutorial section. I went ahead and stickied it because of it's usefulness. It is here.