Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.
Many lakes allow swimming, but no universal rule makes every lake or every day safe. Before entering, check the official beach status. Review current weather along with the local access rules. From shore, watch the wave pattern for signs of changing conditions. Visible current deserves separate attention because even a modest flow can increase effort.…
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A lake is a body of standing or slowly circulating water held in a basin, while a river is channelized water flowing downhill toward another river, a lake or the sea. Lakes store water across a broad surface. Rivers transfer water through a connected channel network. The distinction is useful but not absolute. A river…
A world river map becomes easier to read when rivers are grouped by drainage basin and final outlet. Every basin contains land that drains toward one common outlet, which may be the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian or Arctic Ocean. Closed, or endorheic, basins instead end in an inland lake, wetland or dry depression. The phrase “major…
Rivers create landforms through erosion, transport and deposition. The resulting features include valleys, meanders, oxbow lakes, floodplains, natural levees, alluvial fans and deltas. Their shapes preserve a history of changing flows and moving sediment, including shifts in channel position through time. A river rarely performs only one of those jobs. An outer bend can erode…
