4 of 9

No

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

will have the kindness to fall. The rivers I quoted are only some of the most important, but all the others have a very important role in the life and economy of all local peoples of the world.

Today, in Europe, along the northern Mediterranean coasts, rains are rare and inconstant for the whole year, even in autumn and in winter, when many weeks can pass without a single rain drop on wide areas, as I can personally witness for my region that is Liguria, Italy.

The Ligurian Riviera was defined by foreign travellers of the XIX century "a natural paradise" for its mild climate and abundance and variety of vegetation. Today, instead, the long and irregular dry periods ease the wood fires that leave the soil even drier and exposed to a fast erosion. Liguria, in fact, is all made by mountains along the sea, with high slopes; its rivers directed to the sea are simple streams, nearly all not longer than 20-30 Km and strongly depending on rains and on the presence of wet woods on the mountains.

In all the world, agriculture will have more and more frequently hard times in the rich and in the poor Countries, with the block of the irrigation systems that drain water from rivers, channels (derived from natural rivers and sources) and from their tributaries, when these are dry for many weeks or months.

Also ground-waters will not provide anymore the cultivations with the needed water because just rains from the sky and rivers from the bottom of their beds feed them. So, many traditional cultures (rice, maize, fruit trees, vegetables,...) will be necessarily replaced by others, less water-demanding, if this will be possible and economically convenient. The water scarcity in the planes of these "sick" rivers will oblige local authorities to look for water sources from the mountains tens or hundreds of Km farther, with additional costs and a further stress on these mountain sources, where glaciers keep on withdrawing themselves.

Rivers' dryness will produce another serious consequence, already observed, although temporarily: in the delta and mouth zones of rivers, the sweet coastal ground-waters will withdraw upstream, (not being fed anymore by a sufficient flow from the main rivers) for the advance of the salty sea water at their place. This excess of salt will "burn" and make sterile the soil, making impossible agriculture and causing the death of the coastal natural vegetation, in a chain of environmental and economic damages.

The great rivers will not die for the global warming, but their reduction will cause death and desolation around their course, changing also the landscape, in the long run. An equatorial forest will not survive as such if its usual very wet and hot climate would become equally hot but dry. Its typical vegetation and fauna will be largely killed by the lack of water and by fires, more and more frequent, without the time to adapt to this new situation. The areas undergoing this deforestation will become desert and sterile and the equatorial forests risk to become a savannah or an open dry forest in the next decades (like in Africa), or even desert, if somebody, pushed by the need or by greed, will try to profit of forests reduction to practice further agriculture or breeding activities.

To conclude, we can affirm the climate alone can do much to reduce rivers flows, but human irresponsibility and excessive impact on the territory is surely worsening this situation, making the land weaker and more vulnerable to the relatively fast warming we are experiencing today, mainly, with deforestation and intensive farming and breeding.

Learn more about this author, Aldo Bonincontro.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about Will great rivers die??
We want to hear your view. Write now!