3 Rivers form
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Rivers carry astonishing amounts of water. But where does all that water come from? Are
you thinking that it probably comes from the rain? But then, why is there water in the rivers
even when it is not raining? That's what we'll find out today. In reality, even when it rains,
there are only relatively few drops that fall in rivers, because most of the rain falls directly
into the ocean and the rest mostly falls on the ground or on vegetation.
Moreover, part of the rain evaporates and returns to the atmosphere very quickly. Much is
first absorbed by plants but also ends up evaporating quite quickly. But fortunately, there is
a small amount of rain that remains.
In fact, especially when it rains a lot, some of the water will run off the surface, slide down
the slopes, and finally collect in rivers. But that does not answer our question, since the
runoff brings water to the river only when it rains, or shortly afterwards. Yet, there can be
water in rivers even weeks after the last rains.
So where does that water come from? It turns out that especially in winter, when less water
evaporates through the plants, some rainwater can infiltrate into the soil, much like when
you water a plant and you can observe the water disappearing in the ground. But what
happens when the water infiltrating downwards reaches the rocks that are under the
topsoil? Well, it depends on what type of rock it finds. There are rocks that contain a lot of
small holes, even though they are sometimes so small that you need a microscope to see
them.
These little holes are called pores, and rocks that have many pores are said to be porous. In
general, when the rocks are porous, water can seep through the holes and continue its
journey downwards. But there are also rocks that have very few pores.
In this case, the rocks are said to be impermeable, because water cannot pass through
them. Now, if the downwards passage of water is blocked by a layer of impermeable rock,
then water begins to collect in the porous rocks above. This way, it can form large
underground reservoirs of water known as groundwater aquifers.
The uppermost level in which the pores contain water is called the water table. Rocks
between the water table and the base of the aquifer can contain more than 20 percent of
their volume of water, which means that more than 200 liters of water can be stored in each
cubic meter of rock. A cubic meter is more or less the size of a fridge.
When it reaches an impermeable layer, the water can no longer continue to infiltrate
downwards, so it slowly moves, more or less following topography, towards places where
the water table is the lowest. In some places, the water table might come all the way to the
surface. In this case, the water can come out from underground and return to the surface.
In fact, it is in this way that the rivers receive a lot of their water. The level of the water
table rises and falls with the rain and the seasons, but as long as the level does not drop
lower than the bed of the river, water will seep up through the riverbed and the river can
continue to flow even when it is not raining. But that is not all.
Many rivers start their journey high in the mountains, where the peaks are covered in snow
and ice. In spring and summer, this river receives a lot of water which forms when snow and
ice melt. For this reason, in the Alps, there is often much more water in rivers in summer
than in winter.
So, to summarize where the water in rivers come from, some of the water reaches the river
as surface runoff, when it rains or shortly afterwards. Some of the water comes from
groundwater reservoirs known as aquifers. And finally, some of the water comes from
melting of snow and ice.
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