where does it begin?

You could say that a river begins with a rainstorm. Or in the case of the Lea in England...it comes bubbling up out of the ground. Göta alv starts from a lake...but that lake comes from another river, and before that another lake. The Yukon River in Canada also comes from multiple sources in the coast range of mountains, though mainly from Llewellyn Glacier at the southern end of Atlin Lake. Here in Sweden we've travelled to several places of beginning....in this clip the river Göta älv a little south of its source Lake Vänern, as it passes through the hydro dam at Trollättan.

By contrast, the Lea begins unceremoniously in a damp field in Luton...dominated by a sewage outfall pipe. Does this foreshadow the river's fate at the hands of humans?

Carolyn

The water moves through

Poking around the water supply and sewage treatment systems for Göteborg got me wondering about the constant circulation of water in the world....about how long it takes to pass through our skies, oceans, lakes, and living bodies...Some answers below taken from a UNESCO report: (http://webworld.unesco.org/water/ihp/db/shiklomanov/summary/html/summary.html#2.%20Water%20storage)

Table 1. Periods of water resources renewal on the Earth

World Ocean - 2500 years

Ground water - 1400 years

Polar ice - 9700 years

Mountain glaciers - 1600 years

Ground ice of the permafrost zone - 10,000 years

Lakes - 17 years

Bogs - 5 years

Soil moisture - 1 years

Channel network - 16 days

Atmospheric moisture - 8 days

Biological water - several hours

Carolyn