Rivers - Worldbuilder's Log 41

Drainage Basins, Rivers, Canyons, Lakes

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LINKS:

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MUSIC:

Udo Grunewald

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Intro
00:30 Climate Model Comparison
02:43 Drainage Basins
07:09 Primary (1st Order) Rivers
15:10 Endorheic Basins
20:31 Secondary & Tertiary (2nd & 3rd Order) Rivers
24:01 Glacial Lakes
27:53 Outro

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❤️ Thanks for watching everyone. It means a lot. ❤️

[VulcanTrekkie]

Rivers erode through mountains often enough on Earth that geologists can use that fact to determine how old the river is. The Susquehanna River eroded through the Appalachians and the Columbia River eroded through the Cascades

[nathanleech]

It might be very interesting to play with odd mineral formations and deposits around your large Caspian Sea in the endorheic basin. Erosion from the nearby mountains could deposit lots of minerals in the lake, which would be exposed in the current time period of this world as it is not overflown. Glad you enjoyed the dinner!

[AaronGeo]

I LOVE RIVERS
I LOVE RANDOM CHANNELS OF WATER

[shirokamishijisa]

Can't wait to get to the culture-building section of this series! Just from the rivers and topography, I can see some interesting possibilities for major citiy locations and some possible country shapes.

[EthanNeal]

18:35 Those canyonlands/fragmented tpopgraphy is really something I've seen in Idaho downstream of the outlet of former Lake Bonneville, Red Rock Pass. There's a long series of short canyons across most of the Portneuf River Valley as you go along I-15 and US 91 until you reach the Snake River. It's also really easy to see on interactive sea level maps that let you go up to 1500 meters.

Also going to add that while in 99.9% of cases rivers don't split, there are a few edge cases. The more notable example being deltas, which I'd imagine you'll come back to at some point, but I'll add to that that deltas are not an exclusively coastal feature, just look at the Teton River just north of Rexburg, Idaho and the Okavango Delta in Botswana, both form deltaic complexes where you wouldn't expect. Also, rivers can very rarely split at the continental divides, Two Ocean Pass in Wyoming is the best known example, but it's extremely rare and happens with very small streams near to their headwaters.

[Lucas-dfht]

The spec evo in that massive endorrheic lake would be insane! Imagine Beluga Sturgeon-style freshwater/brackish aquatic evolution only tangentially related to the wider oceans around the world.

[roleplayerchadwick]

This video came out of the perfect time for me. I was needing to make rivers in a current worldbuilding project that I am calling Walkress

[GmodPlusWoW]

When you said "computer says no", that activated my ancient Little Britain memories that I kinda wish I didn't have.

But I'm still glad to see all these neat little rivers and lakes.

[statelyelms]

I absolutely love rivers and watersheds, but it's so far along in the world building process and so contingent on very technical details that I never have gotten to draw them in a satisfying, realistic way, and probably never will. This scratches that itch so well

[madelinejameswrites]

Seeing that comparison that Nikolai generated is really fun! Definitely pretty close. And your river map is GORGEOUS. I love how you darkened everything to make it super easy to see the river.

[magnolia]

This has been one of the most awesome videos in the series so far. Lots of potential with rivers and how water interacts with the land in general. Though he kind of glossed over the existence of river deltas. And sometimes rivers DO split outside of deltas.

[-crusader]

8:22 rivers do split! It is very rare but it does happen, they’re called river bifurcation! There’s a famous example here in the Rockies, called Parting of the Waters in Two Ocean Pass!

[jamesgriffith]

I think there's two slight errors present here.

The first is the idea that you need to punch holes in these Andes style mountains in order to let the moisture through in order to have the rivers on the other, drier, side. Now, were the moisture coming in from the landward side I'd agree. However, looking at the Andes themselves they're narrow enough, and the moisture coming in heavy enough, that both sides are lush and green, the dryness only really beginning once you reach the plains below them. Indeed, looking at Patagonia you not only have a series of major west to east rivers originating from the continuous mountains, but they seem to very much originate where the mountains are at their thickest and largest, with big icecap chunks and then large glacial lakes on the east side. -Bigger mountain, more precipitation, more snow and glaciers, bigger rivers on the dry side. (This is also true-ish for the Yukon river as well, it originates from the thickest part of the mountain). I'd say scroll over and look at how the Andes does it down south, then follow on. You could have some fantastic lakes on the northern sides of those mountains.

-In addition, I'd say that those big northern endoheric basins would but unlikely to remain endoheric. Especially the southern one, at least in that form. Again, plenty of moisture on the mountain, probably a good enough amount pushing through and up. The comparison would be the Tibetan Plateu, and to be fair that has a large centre endoheric basin (as well as draining to the north into a larger one, the gobi desert (in your case the big lake would be the equivalent)). However, what the Tibetan Plateu also has is two 'collector' rivers on the north side, the Indus and the Yarlung/Brahmaputra, which collect the water coming off the Himalayas to the north, thus cutting off the Endoheric basin from a supply that could overtop it.

(You also have the fact that all those high plateus would have been carved up by glaciers, blasting through big valleys that could make it a lot easier for water to get out).

I'd say have the lower basin drain out to either to the south or east, given that there appears to be gaps in the mountains there (or blast one so it can flow to the west into your super nile). I'd then keep the river going into the main big basin, but have it hugging the mountains like the Yahlung or Indus. You may want the same thing on the western side too, there is a gap of sorts in them due east of the apex of the lake.

Then, the inside of that big mountain basin could be subdivided up similar to the Tibetan Plateu.

As it is, you don't have the real ideal situations for Endoheric basis... A giant closed in land-mass, akin to the central asian basins, or a natural endoheric basins with tall rain catching mountains and a desert basin behind, akin to the Great Basin.

Regardless, great work.

[leondonmaya]

Just an observation of an overlook on the canyon part, the canyon ends up being deeper than the surrounding areas, and is disconnected by a higher elevation part, the inland sea would instead overflow to the other river to the west southwest through the other canyon an it is lower in elevation.

[JacobH-zulb]

Don't forget about stream piracy! A great example of this is the Yellow River changing courses and the mouth of the river being at different sides of the Shandong Peninsula at different points in history.

[stefanodadamo]

21:38 to be true, sometimes rivers DO split through distributaries, though rare. It requires adjacent basins, locally not separated by any significant elevation, to actually exchange water. Casiquiare is a case.

[KiraiKatsuji]

AMAZING I LOVE RIVERS AND THIS

Also so in this episode we're doing one of the most important things in terms of how civilizations will develop, as rivers were used for many many things in history and they guided many things through it. Also it looks so beautiful exactly what i love about topography the gorgeus river systems

[beepbop]

I see a small problem with some of your rivers. They seem to very curvy in the hills and straight in the lowlands. This is actually kind of reversed in real life. On slopes, rivers can often proceed quite quickly, eroding their path and heading down quickly. In flatter areas, rivers will meander a lot, with many oxbows. Look at the Seine or the lower Mississippi and compare to, say, the Rio Grande.

[BeneathTheBrightSky]

I'm excited to see the Hyper-Nile river become a cultural powerhouse someday.

[kalez]

I love drawing rivers so much. This video was so fun imagining where I would put all the rivers vs where you did, though much was the same.