Sedimentary Crisis at the Global Scale 1: Large Rivers, From Abundance to Scarcity [Hardcover]

The Earths oceans are currently undergoing unprecedented changes: rivers have suffered a severe reduction in their sediment transport, and as a result, sediment input to the oceans has dropped lower than ever before. These inputs have varied over millennia as a result of both natural occurrences and human actions, such as the building of dams and the extraction of materials from riverbeds.

Sedimentary Crisis at the Global Scale 1 examines how river basins have been affected by the sedimentary crises of various historical epochs. By studying global balances, it provides insights into the profound disruption of the solid transport of fluvial bodies. The book also explores studies of various rivers, from the Amazon, which remains relatively unaffected, to dying rivers such as the Colorado and the Nile.

Foreword ix

Preface xi

Introduction xv

Chapter 1 The Torrential Crisis in the European Mountains (14th19th Centuries) 1

1.1 Introductory generalities on global fluvial systems 1

1.2 Manifestations of the LIA crisis in the river valleys of Western Europe 5

1.2.1 Mountain crises 5

1.2.2 River crises and metamorphoses of the Drac and the Is?re in Grenoble 7

1.2.3 Flooded piedmont plains in Switzerland 11

1.2.4 Sedimentation and large works in Italy 12

1.3 The difficult mastery of the Rhine delta in the modern era 17

1.3.1 Flow distribution between river branches: an age-old battle against the elements of nature 17

1.3.2 Returns on destabilization 19

1.4 Observations on the torrentiality of the Southern Alps in the late 18th and 19th Centuries 20

1.4.1 A highly degraded state of affairs in the late 18th Century 20

1.4.2 Prefl#;