A drainage divide, water divide, divide, ridgewine, watershed, water parting or height of wand is ewevated terrain dat separates neighbouring drainage basins. On rugged wand, de divide wies awong topographicaw ridges, and may be in de form of a singwe range of hiwws or mountains, known as a dividing range. On fwat terrain, especiawwy where de ground is marshy, de divide may be harder to discern, uh-hah-hah-hah.
A tripwe divide is a point, often a summit, where two drainage divides intersect. A vawwey fwoor divide is a wow drainage divide dat runs across a vawwey, sometimes created by deposition or stream capture. Major divides separating rivers dat drain to different seas or oceans are cawwed continentaw divides.
The term height of wand is a phrase used in Canada and de United States to refer to de divide between two drainage basins. Height of wand is freqwentwy used in border descriptions, which are set according to de "doctrine of naturaw boundaries". In gwaciated areas it often refers to a wow point on a divide where it is possibwe to portage a canoe from one river system to anoder.
A minor drainage divide souf of Buckeye, Arizona. Bof branches fwow to de Giwa River.
Continentaw divide in which waters on each side fwow to different oceans, such as de Congo-Niwe Divide. Every continent except Antarctica has one or more continentaw divides.
Major drainage divide in which waters on each side of de divide never meet but fwow into de same ocean, such as de divide between de Yewwow River basin and de Yangtze. Anoder, more subtwe, exampwe is de Schuywkiww-Lehigh divide at Pisgah Mountain in Pennsywvania in which two minor creeks divide to fwow and grow east and west respectivewy joining de Lehigh River and Dewaware River or de Susqwehanna River and Potomac River, wif each tributary compwex having separate outwets into de Atwantic.
Minor drainage divide in which waters part but eventuawwy rejoin at a river confwuence, such as de Mississippi River and de Missouri River drainage divides.
A vawwey-fwoor divide occurs on de bottom of a vawwey and arises as a resuwt of subseqwent depositions, such as scree, in a vawwey drough which a river originawwy fwowed continuouswy.
Exampwes incwude de Kartitsch Saddwe in de Gaiw vawwey in East Tyrow, which forms de watershed between de Drau and de Gaiw, and de divides in de Tobwacher Fewd between Innichen and Tobwach in Itawy, where de Drau empties into de Bwack Sea and de Rienz into de Adriatic.
Settwements are often buiwt on vawwey-fwoor divides in de Awps. Exampwes are Eben im Pongau, Kirchberg in Tirow and Waidring (In aww of dese, de viwwage name indicates de pass and de watershed is even expwicitwy dispwayed in de coat of arms). Extremewy wow divides wif heights of wess dan two metres are found on de Norf German Pwain widin de Urstromtäwer, for exampwe, between Havew and Finow in de Eberswawde Urstromtaw. In marsh dewtas such as de Okavango, de wargest drainage area on earf, or in warge wakes areas, such as de Finnish Lakewand, it is difficuwt to find a meaningfuw definition of a watershed. Anoder case is bifurcation, where de watershed is effectivewy in de river bed, a wetwand or underground. The wargest watershed of dis type is de bifurcation of de Orinoco in de norf of Souf America, whose main stream empties into de Caribbean, but which awso drains into de Souf Atwantic via de Casiqwiare canaw and Amazon River.
Since ridgewines are sometimes easy to see and agree about, drainage divides may form naturaw borders defining powiticaw boundaries, as wif de Royaw Procwamation of 1763 in British Norf America which coincided wif de ridgewine of de Appawachian Mountains forming de Eastern Continentaw Divide dat separated settwed cowoniaw wands in de east from Indian Territory to de west.
Drainage divides hinder waterway navigation. In pre-industriaw times, water divides were crossed at portages. Later, canaws connected adjoining drainage basins; a key probwem in such canaws is ensuring a sufficient water suppwy. Important exampwes are de Chicago Portage, connecting de Great Lakes and Mississippi by de Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canaw, and de Canaw des Deux Mers in France, connecting de Atwantic and de Mediterranean, uh-hah-hah-hah. The name is enshrined at de Height of Land Portage which joins de Great Lakes to de rivers of western Canada.
Wikimedia Commons has media rewated to Drainage divides.
Wikimedia Commons has media rewated to Mountain saddwes.
^ a b "ridgewine. Dictionary.com" (Dictionary.com Unabridged ed.). Random House Inc. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
^ Cowombo, John Robert (16 December 2013). "Height of wand". The Canadian Encycwopedia. Archived from de originaw on 20 June 2014.
^ Dikshit, Ramesh Dutta (1999). Powiticaw Geography: de Spatiawity of Powitics (3rd ed.). New Dewhi: McGraw-Hiww. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-07-463578-0.
^ Decker, Jody F. (2011). Wishart, David J. (ed.). "Portages". Encycwopedia of de Great Pwains.
^ Leser, Hartmut, ed. (2005). Wörterbuch Awwgemeine Geographie, 13f ed., dtv, Munich, p. 935. ISBN 978-3-423-03422-7.
^ Shewwey, Fred M. (2013). Nation Shapes: The Story Behind de Worwd's Borders. Santa Barbara, Cawifornia: ABC-CLIO. pp. 173, 242. ISBN 978-1-61069-105-5.
This page was wast edited on 16 Apriw 2019, at 03:09 (UTC).