The Rivers Of France :: Geography France Rivers Water Essays

The Rivers of France The Rhà ´ne system The Rhà ´ne is the great river of the southeast. Rising in the Alps, it passes through Lake Geneva (French: Lac Là ©man) to enter France, which has 324 miles of its total length of 505 miles. At Lyon it receives its major tributary, the Saà ´ne. In eastern France the direction of the main rivers is predominantly north-south through the Alpine furrow. The regime of the Rhà ´ne is complex. Near Lyon the Rhà ´ne and its important Isà ¨re and Drà ´me tributaries, draining from the Alps, have a marked late spring-early summer peak caused by the melting of snow and ice. While this peak is generally characteristic of the river as a whole, it is considerably modified by the contribution of the Saà ´ne, of the Durance, and of some tributaries in the Mediterranean south as a result of the fall-winter rainfall peak. Thus the powerful Rhà ´ne has a remarkably ample flow in all seasons. The course of the river and the local water tables has been much modified by a series of dams to gener ate power and to permit navigation to Lyon. The Rhà ´ne also supplies cooling water to a series of atomic power stations. West of the Rhà ´ne, the Bas Rhà ´ne-Languedoc canal, constructed after World War II to provide irrigation, has proved to be an essential element in the remarkable urban and industrial development of Languedoc. East of the Rhà ´ne the Canal de Provence taps the unpolluted waters of a Rhà ´ne tributary, the Durance, supplying Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Toulon, and the coast of Provence with drinking water and providing impetus for urban expansion. At its delta, beginning about 25 miles from the Mediterranean, the Rhà ´ne and its channels deposit significant amounts of alluvium to form the Camargue region. The Rhine system The Rhine forms the eastern boundary of France for some 118 miles. In this section its course is dominated by the melting of snow and ice from Alpine headstreams, giving it a pronounced late spring-summer peak and often generally low water in autumn. The Ill, which joins the Rhine at Strasbourg, drains southern Alsace. The Rhine valley has been considerably modified by the construction on the French side of the lateral Grand Canal d'Alsace, for power generation and navigation. The eastern Paris Basin is drained by two tributaries, the Moselle, (partly canalized), and the Meuse; the former reaches the Rhine by way of Luxembourg and Germany, and the latter, as the Maas (Dutch), reaches the Rhine delta at the North Sea by way of Belgium and The Netherlands.