All About Rivers and There Value To Societies

All organisms on Earth are facing an alarming situation, the loss of an element
essential to life. The worlds waterways are at a tipping point, without immediate action
every species is faced with possible extinction. When we say every species, we are not
only speaking about animals, but you and I as well. Pollution of these major rivers is
killing us slowly. It is limiting the fresh water supply whether we realize it or not and the
more pollution of them equals less water for us. Some of the biggest water sources in the
world are being polluted and if we dont stop it who knows what will happen besides
extinction of us all. Five of the largest rivers in the world are being polluted these rivers
include; The Nile River, The Amazon River, The Yangtze River, the Yellow River and
The Paran River.

There are many long rivers in the world. The five longest rivers in the world
include; The Nile River, The Amazon River, The Yangtze River, The Yellow River, and
The Paran River. The Nile sits at 4,258 miles long, The Amazon River sits at 4,000
miles even, The Yangtze River sits at 3,915 miles long, The Yellow River sits at 3,395
miles long, and The Paran River sits at 3,032 miles long. The Nile River has an area
drain of 1,256,591 square miles, The Amazon River has an area drain of 2,670,000
square miles, The Yangtze River has an area drain of 1.2 million square miles, The
Yellow River has an area drain of 286,659 square miles, and The Paran River has an
area drain of 1,081,000 square miles. The Nile is a river that flows through several
countries, the Nile flows through countries that include; Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda,

Burundi, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt. The
Amazon River flows through countries that include: Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia,
Ecuador, and Brazil. The Yangtze River flows through countries that include: QinghaiTibet Plateau, Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and
Shanghai, The Yellow River runs through different parts of china, it starts in the Bayan
Har Mountains in Qinghai province of western China, it flows through nine provinces.
Finally the last river flows through the countries of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. The
sources to the Nile River would be its tributaries known as the Blue Nile and the White
Nile. The source for the Amazon River is the Mismi. The Qinghai is the source for the
Yangtze River. The source from the Yellow River is The Bayan Har Mountains. Finally
the source for The Paran River is Great Rio Grande we all have probably heard of and
The Paranaiba River.
Now we may think that these rivers being polluted dont affect us, because we
may not live close to them, well there are Polluted Rivers on each continent and even
right here in the state of North Carolina, where we all live. Even if you believe that the
big rivers dont affect you it is very likely that your area could be piping in water from
one of these large rivers. Rivers such as the Mississippi and Missouri river located in
North America, and the Rio de Plata and Madeira River located in South America, or the
Orange River and the Congo River located in Africa, and this is only three continents out
of the seven we have. There is also the Volga and Danube River located in Europe, the
Mekong River and the Indus located in Asia, and the Murray and the Murrumbridgee
River which is located in Australia. Antarctica which is mostly snow has rivers in which
could be supplying you your water. Antarctica has the Onyx River and the Surko Stream.

These are two rivers on each continent which also happen to be the largest; we are
polluting the largest rivers on each continent if we are wiping out the largest rivers where
will we then obtain our water from. If this still means nothing to you we have 17 river
basins in North Carolina and almost all of them are being polluted, two rivers in North
Carolina that are being polluted are Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin, and the Cullasaja River
Basin.
Lets backtrack to the five largest rivers in the world. We will begin with the Nile
the Nile River sits at 4,258 miles long it is the longest river in the world and is being
polluted. The Nile River is located in Africa it was used thousands of years ago for trade
between African cities and the Mediterranean cities. Cities, some of the first were built
along the Nile River, it was also one of the first places people started to settle because it
had CLEAN water that could be used for building, bathing, washing, and of course
drinking. This was all possible on this river before it began to be destroyed by humans,
years later we started to build dams upon the river along with the many other forms of
problems damaging this river. The Nile today though it is being damaged it is not
damaged to the point where it is not useable. The Nile Today is used for Drinking in
several parts of Africa; it is used for irrigation, transportation, fishing, and also tourism.
The Nile right now as we know it can be used for drinking, but soon in years to come as
pollution level in the Nile rises it will be undrinkable water that the Nile contains. Several
accounts of poisons as well as ammonia and salt are being found in the Niles drinking
water, as well as in the sources of the Nile which include the White and Blue Nile.
Despite this affecting the drinking water it is also affecting the animals one animal it is
mainly affecting is the fish, the dissolved salt increasing the PH and sodium in the water

is killing and suffocating all the fish in this water, the fish that are in the Nile need fresh
water that is being destroyed. Back when the Nile was pure people respected its purity
and used it appropriately, now the Nile is being used to as a waste box for some present
day civilizations. Soon the only thing the Nile will be used for is Hydroelectricity that is
produced by the many dams that are built upon it. Right now we still can obtain drinking
water from the Nile and we should work to preserve this water. We can do this by
knowing the values that the Nile river holds, we could stop the littering in the Nile and
could prevent the amount of dams that we build on the dams, one thing that the
government is working on itself is they set up a treaty that, allows no projects to be
started on or long the river without consent of the other parties working on the river, this
is so that everyone can evaluate the project, and decide as a whole if it will endanger the
river or not. Since a lot of the pollution of the Nile River comes from an indirect or nonpoint source, we can strive as a whole to figure out what is leading to some of the
pollutions of the river.
The Amazon River which is the second largest river in the world has been in
battle with the Nile for years as longest river in the world, but the Nile has the Amazon
by 258 miles. The Amazon is located in South America it is mainly depended on for
transportation, water for agriculture, and of course for hydroelectricity like most rivers
that are dammed. It has all of these uses and is still used for DRINKING, the Amazon
River has an abundance of fresh water, and it in itself alone adds twenty percent of fresh
water to the ocean. The source of the Amazon River is Lago Villafro in the Andes
Mountains, Peru, this tells us that the Amazon River is carrying fresh water and providing
it for many cities all of South America. It is surrounded by the rainforest covering several

different nations; Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana,

Suriname and French Guiana. It is covered by the rain Forrest which is both good and
bad, it is good because it lowers pollution because it just isnt there for people to throw
their trash, but it is bad because during the more rainy seasons the river may experience
flooding. The Amazon River is so vast it is usually called the river sea; it is also a river
whose mouth is the Atlantic Ocean. Anaconda snakes are found in the waters of the
Amazon so this water could not be used for drinking. The Amazon has over one thousand
tributaries which are all over one thousand five hundred miles long. Despite the snakes in
the Amazon it also contains Paranas, which increases the reasons why people would not
be able to bathe in this water. The Amazon River truly does have an abundance of fresh,
clean, potable water but it is still being polluted in some just like most of the rivers out
there are. The Amazon River specifically is being polluted by illegal gold mining, the
mining is being done in places where it should not be and unsafe particles are entering the
water, this by itself is not super harmful but if it continues the end result will not be so
great. One thing the government can do to stop all of the illegal gold mining is
completely close out the site where it is occurring at, block off the site so that it cannot be
accessed by anyone unless they were approved to.
The Yangtze River is a river that has caused a lot of problems in China where it
is located, it has killed many of people, forced many more to move, it has also destroyed
land and killed animals, but it is not the river that is doing so it is the fact that the worlds
largest dam is built upon this river. This dam pollutes the river by itself this is why people
regret building the dam upon it. The Yangtze River was always a big help when it came to
transportation, then and now the Yangtze River was the route many ferries, ships, and

boats took to reach several different destinations all around china and the continent of
Asia, it is also a huge tourist attraction. This river has seven hundred tributaries and fifty
bridges. This river has major pollution now, once upon a time this river was used for
drinking and bathing and washing etc. now there is so much pollution with in the water
animals such as: Chinese Alligators, the Finless Porpoise and the Chinese Paddlefish are
endangered. The use for this river has changed the actives occurring on the river date
back to 27,000 years ago. This river experiences extremely bad flooding. Floods from the
river have killed more people than any other water disaster recorded. There is the flood of
1911 which killed around 100,000, 1931 (145,000 dead), 1935 (142,000 dead) and 1954
(30,000 dead). The Dam on the river is a big deal it is what causes the river to this day to
flood, it is what is killing off most of the animals there, and it may be the reason why this
river might soon be fully destroyed. The worlds largest dam is a hydroelectric dam.
Hydroelectric is the generation of electricity using water flows. The name of this dam is
The Three Gorges Dam. This dam in located in China, It is on the Yangtze River. Its exact
location is by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei
province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of
installed capacity. This dam is 1.4 miles which is 2.3 kilometers it is 607 feet tall and five
times larger than the Hoover Dam which is located in the U.S. This dam used 21 million
cubic yards of concrete; this structure is also a world record because of the massive size.
This dam was built in stages all together it took 11 years. The first stage was from 1992
to 1997 and the second stage was from 1998 to 2003. The Three Gorges Dam took up so
much money the economy was so bad, no jobs little pay for the jobs that were available,
little or no housing were available to people so many were forced to relocate, to be exact

1.3 million people were forced to relocate. Before the dam was built they have an
estimated amount of 300,000 people being killed by river floods from the Yangtze River.
They believed that the dam will protect 15 million people as well as 1.5 million acres of
farmland. This dam provides 3 percent of the counties energy. Before the dam was built
people around the river witnessed death or destruction of property and land. After the
building of this rive many peoples lives and destruction of land or property were no
longer in danger. The dams reservoir water level sits at 456 feet above sea level, and it's
expected to rise quickly As years progress. This is good that it is holding all of this water
but the fact that the dam will soon flood is not good. They said the dam to flood 574 feet
above sea level. The dams reservoir is 40 miles long; if this dam was to flood or when it
does flood it will flood over a thousand towns and villages. This dam has a reservoir so
big that dozens of architectural and cultural sites disappear under it. The Three Gorges
Damn affects many species living in the river; it threatens the lives of the baiji dolphin
and also the Siberian canes, as well as many other animals. Many animals depend on this
river for survival and with the toxins being released into the water from the dam animals
lives are slowly but surely decreasing. There are a total of forty seven rare or endangered
species in the Three Gorges Dam, these animals are protected by Chinese national law.
The government plans to preserve the Rivers Dolphins and other endangered species by
creating natural reserves and artificial spawning programs. This means that these
endangered species will be preserved by the government in an uncontaminated location.
This river is like a big machine since it produces energy you already know that it is
letting go some type of smoke or something of that sort so that is already pollution. From

researching further information I have found that the dam releases toxins into the water
that also pollutes the river water and harms the animals.
The Yellow River just like the Yangtze River is located in China; its source is the
Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China. It also runs through nine
different provinces in China. At the end of the Yellow River it lets go into the Yellow Sea.
The rivers drainage basin is often called the Cradle of Civilization because it was the
first area civilized by people in northern China and it was also the most prosperous area
in early Chinese history. The Yellow River is known as the birthplace for Chinese
civilizations because the first civilizations in china were started along the borders of the
Yellow River. They settled along the Yellow River years ago because then the yellow
river despite its color was clean, now, present day the Yellow River produces non-potable
water, meaning it is not drinkable. The Yellow River is extremely polluted, it is deadly.
The deadly pollution comes from the phalanx of chemical and pharmaceutical factories.
This water has become so polluted that eighty five percent of the water is unsafe. The
only thing that the Yellow River is able to be used for today is transportation, the water is
far too dangerous for anything else. I dont feel as if there is much we can do to this river
to help preserve it, it is already eight five percent unsafe meaning the last fifteen percent
isnt far away. I feel as if the Yellow River serves as an example for the rest of the rivers
that are on its way to becoming like this, this river is and should be a wakeup call to us
saying THIS HAS TO STOP. The rivers that are being destroyed are so many peoples
drinking sources and if we keep destroying these rivers soon enough we will be forced to
search for alternative potable water sources.

The Parana River is located in South America, in the years way before us when
the continents etc. was all just being discovered explores used the Parana River as a
passageway into South America. Now the Parana River is used for still transportation but
also fishing and electricity provided with the dams on it. However this river cannot be
used for drinking water because of the large amounts of pollution that has been inflicted
upon it such as; dams, sedimentation, silting and deforestation. This pollution to the river
is affecting human, plant and animal life besides it being destroyed itself. The
government has come up with quite a few solutions that can lead the Parana away from
the polluted path it is going on. Some solutions that the government had were; create a
computer modeling tool that acts like a technological crystal ball, enabling government
and private-industry leaders to make more conservation-friendly decisions about the
potential freshwater impacts of large infrastructure and land-use projects before they're
even built. It will also give us feedback of how landscape planning, water and soil
conservation activities are improving water quality and sustaining biodiversity in places
downstream, like the Pantanal.
Now looking at the five largest rivers of the world, we see that these rivers are one
the longest and two contain the most water supplying to the most amounts of people and
all these five rivers are being POLLUTED in one way or another. We should think about
this in a higher perspective then we do because if these rivers continue to be polluted,
where would our water then come from. Yes, we could pipe in water from another place
but then where they would get water from, it is like a chain reaction. We need to focus on
protecting whats right in front of our face so we dont have to face future problems such
as little water supply.

The Mississippi and Missouri River are often mistaken for the same river because
they flow into each other but they are two different rivers located in North America. It
flows through ten states Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana before emptying into the Gulf of
Mexico. The Mississippi it flows from the northern United States and the Great Lakes to
the south, and connects to the west the Missouri River. The Mississippi is extremely
important to the United States for one it brings in money, but not only does it do that it
serves as transportation, explorations, and is even clean enough to be used as potable
water. The Mississippi was where the Europeans settled near and started to build there
colonies, it was also where the pilgrims began to settle as well. This river is extremely
important and you can tell because of how many people have tried to obtain the river, one
situation was the seven year war between Britain and the Spanish over control of the
Mississippi before it belonged to the United States. Since the Missouri and the
Mississippi River are connected, they basically have the same features the same activities
etc. The Mississippi River like many of the other rivers so far discussed in this paper has
some type of pollution within it. Toxic chemicals such as nitrates, arsenic, benzene and
mercury were dumped into the Mississippi River, causing great pollution to both the
Mississippi and Missouri River, though this water is still usable and potable, if events like
this continue there is a chance that this water will no longer be able to be used as useable
water that is good for growing crops, homes for animals, and drinking and or bathing
water for us.
The Rio De Plata is a river that is located on the continent of South America; it is
strongly associated with the Parana River in which I discussed earlier in this paper. Back

to the other South American River, the other South American River is the Madeira River.
The Rio De Plata River is known as the river of silver it flows along the coast of the
Atlantic Ocean and is said to be an estuary for the Parana River. The Rio De Plata was
named Mar Dulce which means fresh waters, if the waters were fresh this means that it
was able to be used for drinking as well as bathing, and back then washing, this was
probably home to man animals as well as a great source to plenty humans. The pollution
that is being inflicted on the Rio De Plata River is nowhere near severe as the ones that
we have seen in the previous paragraphs, erosion of this river happens through forms of
erosion. Which can be prevented once they find out from where, this would be considers
a non-point source of pollution because we know that it is erosion that is causing the
pollution but we dont know exactly where the erosion is coming from, so we dont know
where to set up to stop it. Our first step in finding a solution to this problem is to find out
where the spot the pollution is occurring at.
The Orange River and the Congo River are two rivers that sit on the continent of
Africa. The Congo River also happens to be the sixth largest river in the world. The
Congo River is the main transportation source in Central Africa. It contains over nine
miles of shipping routes and is still used today to ship a great amount of items. The
Congo River happens to be the most important river in Africa; it provides electricity to
several different parts of Africa through its forty different hydroelectricity plants. It also
lets go one million four hundred thousand cubic feet of water in to the Atlantic Ocean
approximately every second. The Congo has two non-point sources of pollution that
affects it; these are runoff and soil erosion. The gasoline from the ships also plays a part
in the pollution of the river. This is another situation where to come up with a solution

since where the pollution is coming from is unidentified first we need to identify it and
eventually come up with a solution from there on out as to how they will prevent it from
happening again or continuously occurring.
Europe has two major rivers, Volga River and Danube River. Volga River is the
longest river in Europe it is located in Russia and flows all through it providing water for
all the different towns there. The Volga River is also used for transportation and serves as
a home for many of the animals that live around and in it. The Volga River was first
settled upon by the Huns and Turkic people in which they built there civilizations upon it
using it for washing, bathing, drinking, building etc. Wars over the Volga River were
fought, one even splitting it between two empires. Volga River can be put down as being
part of Russian culture. This was how it was used in the past; the present day Volga River
is extremely polluted. Matter of fact sixty percent of the Volgas waters are polluted
because of toxic chemicals that were dumped into the waters as well as waste from us
humans. There have been several accounts of chemicals finding its way to rivers and we
need to limit the accounts on which we see this happen, we also need to make sure that
we as humans stop our self from destroying the rivers and its inhabitants. We may not
realize it but something as simple as throwing some bottles or some metal in the river
cans one hundred fish easy.
Mekong and Indus are two river located in Asia, Murray and the Murrumbridgee
in Australia, and finally the Onyx River, and the Surko Stream. Antarctica happens to
only have one major river and many streams. All of these rivers believe it or not are
polluted in one way or another and right now we are doing nothing to stop this we are

paying it no attention and making the problem worst. When I started this essay instead of
choosing all of the most polluted rivers, I chose all the longest river and checked if they
were polluted and they were, some worse than others. These are our longest rivers letting
out the most water and provide the most water for people all over the world. If we
continued to let our drinking water basically become garbage there is a great chance that
we all might die, there is such a process where salt is removed from the water to make
potable, but not every society, state, or country and afford this, so if they cant what?
They die; because we as humans failed to take care of the planet that we live on to
preserve one of the most important items to mankind as well as to the animals and even
the plants.
Some of our very own river basins rights here in North Carolina are witnessing
pollution. Two of them are the Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin and the Cullasaja River
Basin. The Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin is located in Winston Salem North Carolina and
extends all the way to South Carolina and ends in a town called Winyah. When the
Yadkin Pee Dee was first discovered it was compared to gold, it was a clean, cold, fresh
water river that was barely touch or contaminated. It was used for drinking purposes
recreational activities fishing, and much more. This as we probably all know did not last
for a long time, its first act of pollution was building a dam across it, this dam causes
many problems with the river, besides it letting go waste into the river, it also caused the
river to flood on several occasions killing the animals such as fish that lived in the waters.
This was not the end though. From the years of 2000 2013 several accounts of different
toxins have been spilled into this river. The polluted river is so bad that nothing is done in
this river anymore. Matter of fat they are trying to clean up this river now, but personally

I think it is too late. When they built the dams and they saw that it was causing problems
I feel as if then they should have pushed efforts to fix the problems but they didnt they
let it go on and this is what we are going to do if we do not start to take action FAST! The
next river basin that belongs to our own North Carolina is the Cullasaja River Basin, This
river basin is located in the west part of North Carolina, it is one of the seventeen river
basins of North Carolina but I believe that it is not one of the most popular river basins
because there is no exact location nor many pictures on it. What we do know about it is it
is extremely scenic and contains three waterfalls. After further research it does not look
like this is a river basin that is really used for things such as drinking, etc. but it is more
so used a tourist site, where people come just to drive by to witness the fast moving
beautiful waterfalls that this river basin contains.
. Some of the biggest water sources in the world are being polluted and if we
dont stop it who knows what will happen besides extinction of us all. We need to take
better care of our rivers. I dont think people are realizing the damage that is being caused
and what the outcome could be in the end people not taking care of these rivers can lead
to things no one can even think about. A world without clean water to drink, this would
mean the whole world would be like the commercials about the African children living in
poverty drinking dirty water because that is all they have. The world does not need to
come to be like this, if we all took care and did our part in the cleanup and made it our
goal to preserve these rivers we can get them cleaned up and extend the amount of time
we have them providing us as well as the plants and animals with the water need for
survival.