The Rivers Of France :: Geography France Rivers Water Essays

The Rivers of FranceThe Rhne constitution The Rhne is the great river of the southeast. Rising in the Alps, it passes by dint of Lake Geneva (French Lac Lman) to enter France, which has 324 miles of its total length of 505 miles. At Lyon it receives its major(ip) tributary, the Sane. In eastern France the direction of the main rivers is predominantly north-south through the alpine furrow. The regime of the Rhne is complex. Near Lyon the Rhne and its grave Isre and Drme tributaries, draining from the Alps, have a marked late spring-early summertime peak caused by the melting of snow and ice. While this peak is broadly characteristic of the river as a whole, it is considerably modified by the persona of the Sane, of the Durance, and of some tributaries in the Mediterranean south as a entrust of the fall-winter rainfall peak. Thus the berthful Rhne has a outstandingly ample flow in all seasons. The course of the river and the local urine tables has been much modified by a ser ies of dams to generate power and to permit navigation to Lyon. The Rhne also supplies cooling pissing to a series of atomic power stations. West of the Rhne, the Bas Rhne-Languedoc canal, constructed after World War II to provide irrigation, has proved to be an essential element in the remarkable urban and industrial increment of Languedoc. East of the Rhne the channel de Provence taps the unpolluted amnionic fluid of a Rhne tributary, the Durance, supplying Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Toulon, and the coast of Provence with drinking irrigate and providing impetus for urban expansion. At its delta, beginning about 25 miles from the Mediterranean, the Rhne and its channels deposit significant amounts of alluvium to form the Camargue region.The Rhine system The Rhine forms the eastern boundary of France for some 118 miles. In this section its course is predominate by the melting of snow and ice from Alpine headstreams, giving it a pronounced late spring-summer peak and often gene rally low water in autumn. The Ill, which joins the Rhine at Strasbourg, drains southern Alsace. The Rhine valley has been considerably modified by the construction on the French side of the lateral Grand Canal dAlsace, for power generation and navigation. The eastern Paris Basin is drained by two tributaries, the Moselle, (partly canalized), and the Meuse the former reaches the Rhine by way of Luxembourg and Germany, and the latter, as the Maas (Dutch), reaches the Rhine delta at the North Sea by way of Belgium and The Netherlands.