- Thanks - lots of interesting issues here. Knowing the problems that dams cause, my initial reaction is to be concerned about potential environmental damage, e.g. allowing invasive species to spread... and railways might be cheaper as a form of transport now. Actually, that would be interesting comparison to make..
- Well, no. The dam-stuff above is added as the blog is intented to also discuss some options on eliminating possible environmental damage (if built correct a dam shouldn't do any environmental damage at all, options as fish stairs, making sure the dam doesn't block too much water, ... can eliminate most if not all environmental damage. The other info is simply about connecting rivers.
Some other ideas I'm having on the connecting of rivers (not imbedded to blog nor here) can momentarily decrease species however (locally), these include connecting rivers that are composed of waters with varying salinility. This idea isn't worked out at the moment dough, and the ultimate idea anyhow is to decrease the amount of species that are destroyed (water is a very cost-efficient method of transportation (as too railways btw) and it actually decreases drag when compared to transport over land and also doesn't require roads, ...) This means co2 emissions are decreased which damages allot more species in the end, the downside (as said already) dough is that some species will die due to the variation in salinity levels.
- No conclusions from me, though, as I haven't done the research myself. --Chriswaterguy 05:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
- Well, a very interesting page would be looking at canals connecting rivers - not only how to build them, but why to build them (I'm still not clear on the relative carbon impact of canal transport vs rail - I'll look forward to reading) and how to minimize the negative impact. I know that with dams there are ways of reducing the impact, but the impression I have is that in practice they are often implemented poorly. E.g. a story I heard of dams on the Mekong with fish ladders designed for the wrong kinds of fish. Or promises of the Aswan dam not silting up... but of course it did, and it was too late.
- But of course, we want more solid info than just some anecdotes I heard 14 years ago - which is why we have the wiki. :) --Chriswaterguy 13:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)