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GCSE Geography: Rivers Hard Engineering - Coggle Diagram
GCSE Geography:
Rivers Hard Engineering
Dams and reservoirs
Costs
Flooding the valley to create the dam floods beautiful places and displaces people (Kielder Dam - 58 families)
Interferes with the path of migrating fish
Dams are expensive to build (Kielder Dam - £167 million)
Makes the soils downstream less fertile as there is a lack of sediment from floods
Can cause landslides and earthquakes
Benefits
Promotes new habitat and conservation areas
Boosts tourism (Kielder Dam 300,000 million a year bringing £6 million)
Source of drinking water (Kielder Dam holds 200,000 million litres of water)
Forestry which employs people (150 million trees planted at Kielder dam)
Provides HEP (Kielder Dam 6MW electricity for 10,000 people)
Channel straightening
Costs
Expensive (£5.8 million for River Parrett)
Straightened channel may have a concrete lining which is unattractive and animals can't burrow in it.
Dredging needs to be done more frequently
As the water is speeded up, flood risk may increase down stream
Benefits
More water can be held in the channel
The length on the river is decreased which is better for shipping and trading
People are less scared their houses will flood, so investment increases and insurance costs decrease
Embankments
Costs
Not very reliable in very heavy rain
Prone to erosion which leads to the river downstream needing to be dredged
High maintenance as it needs constant monitoring and repairs
Benefits
Cheap
If the embankments are earth they provide habitats for animals
Houses are safer from flooding
Flood relief channels
Costs
Expensive
If it is very bad weather the flood relief channel may flood as well as the main channel
Benefits
Removes excess water from the river channel, reducing the flood risk