Day: September 4, 2019

Meguro River, Tokyo, Japan

The river above is found in Tokyo, Japan, running straight through the city. I took this image while visiting Japan in 2017. It is one of many rivers that run through Tokyo, and is well maintained, with its banks being extensively landscaped as to serve as an urban green space for the local urban community. It is a popular site for Cherry Blossom viewing during the spring and summer seasons. Close to the source in Setagaya, the river is actually split vertically into two: part of the river feeds into a large, underground storm drain, while the upper portion is landscaped to serve as a green space in the compact urban environment of Tokyo.

Mountain River

This is a picture of a river named “The Snake River” and it runs directly parallel with the base of small resort in Colorado named Keystone. Keystone sits 10 miles west of the continental divide. If you can’t tell by the photo, the river here is running towards the photographer. The Snake river is made up of water from snowmelt, and runs extremely fast in the late spring/early summer, and slower in the later months of the summer. Some of the snow melt from the continental divide feeds into this river, but there are also many other smaller rivers (tributaries) that feed into this one, making it one of the larger snow melt rivers. This river along with many others from the continental divide and other ranges feed into a large lake named “lake Dillion” which serves as the water supply for Denver.

Delaware Water Gap/Mount Minsi

I took these photos while hiking Mount Tammany in Knowlton New Jersey. Pictured is the Delaware River as it runs through the Delaware Water Gap, dividing Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The mountain in the picture is Mount Minsi, the mountain we will be hiking later in the semester. The River has been running through the area for millions of years, cutting a hole through the mountain range slowly over time. Interstate 80 can also be seen following along the River, eventually crossing from NJ to PA.

Bushkill Curtain

Near the bottom of the stairs from Lafayette to Downtown Easton, there is an overlook on the Bushkill Creek. Hanging from a building across the way there is a curious curtain of 750 painted buoys suspended by steel wire. This display was created by an Environmental Artist, Stacy Levy, and is a temporary project for the Art of Urban Environments Festival.

The curtain moves with the wind, mimicking wind chimes, and also flows with the water when the creek is high. The flow and height are both depicted by the position of the display.

The erosion of the blue paint on the buoys does more than just looking pretty. The line of erosion, as depicted, mirrors the creek bed and gives more insight into the form of the creek that part of our campus is built upon.

Glacial Rivers

An image of the river leading out of Fox glacier in New Zealand, behind this photo is where the glacier sat between the mountains. Seemingly innocuous, what’s frightening about this image is that this river runs through quite a lot of land that was once occupied by the glacier. While at this park, I read that the glacier had shrunk the same amount from 1950-2010 as it had from 1700-1950, the same amount of change in a matter of 60 years versus 250 years.

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