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Inland water transport [draft]

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  • Inland water transport (IWT) ranks among the oldest uses of water. IWT has in several ways significantly affected spatial patterns of both biophysical and human phenomena. First it has facilitated spatial interaction, allowing greater degrees of specialization and exchange--one of the prerequisites of civilization. IWT was important in Pharonic Egypt and Mesopotamia, while the Grand Canal in China, still the world's longest artifical waterway (over 1700 km), has been intermittently in operation for approximately 2500 years. Second, IWT has been an important force in the unification of political entities within river basins. And third, on a smaller scale, the availability and characteristics of IWT have had a marked influence on the siting of numerous cities. Many, for example, are located at or near confluences of navigable waterways, owing to the usual change of depths at river junctions which required transshipment and also because goods from different tributary areas could be processed at these points. Gorkiy (formerly Nizhniy Novgorod) at the confluence of the Oka and Volga Rivers and St. Louis at the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers are but two examples in this category. Other cities were built at portages around falls or near other disruptions to inland navigation, for example Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville) on the Congo River. IWT has also caused significant modifications in hydrologic environments. In many countries dredging, channalizing, and straightening of rivers as well as the construction of canals has also modified the quantity, quality, timing and location of surface waters, silt and acquatic biota.
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