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Barge often refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but on inland waterways, most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. The term barge has a rich history, and therefore there are many other types of barges.
A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary between maritime shipping routes and waterways used by inland water craft. Maritime shipping routes cross oceans and seas, and some lakes, where navigability is assumed, and no engineering is required, except to provide the draft for deep-sea shipping to approach seaports (channels), or to provide a short cut across an isthmus; this is the function of ship canals. Dredged channels in the sea are not usually described as waterways. There is an exception to this initial distinction, essentially for legal purposes, see under international waters.
A ship canal is a canal especially intended to accommodate ships used on the oceans, seas, or lakes to which it is connected.
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) is the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately 1,300 mi (2,100 km) from Saint Marks, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas.
A bathymetric chart is a type of isarithmic map that depicts the submerged topography and physiographic features of ocean and sea bottoms. Their primary purpose is to provide detailed depth contours of ocean topography as well as provide the size, shape and distribution of underwater features. Topographic maps display elevation above ground and are complementary to bathymetric charts. Charts use a series of lines and points at equal intervals to showcase depth or elevation. A closed shape with increasingly smaller shapes inside of it can indicate an ocean trench or a seamount, or underwater mountain, depending on whether the depths increase or decrease going inward.
The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship being contemplated for navigation and the seasonal water level. On others, it is quite objective, being caused by a waterfall, a low bridge that is not a drawbridge, or a dam without navigation locks. Several rivers in a region may have their heads of navigation along a line called the fall line.
In geography and fluvial geomorphology, a thalweg or talweg is the line of lowest elevation within a valley or watercourse.
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such as lake or harbour tour boats. As larger water craft, virtually all riverboats are especially designed and constructed, or alternatively, constructed with special-purpose features that optimize them as riverine or lake service craft, for instance, dredgers, survey boats, fisheries management craft, fireboats and law enforcement patrol craft.
In physical geography, a channel is a type of landform consisting of the outline of a path of relatively shallow and narrow body of water or of other fluids, most commonly the confine of a river, river delta or strait. The word is generally used to refer to a natural formation of a narrow and is cognate to canal, which is more commonly used to denote an artificial formation.
Bathymetry is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors, lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water depth measurements are from Ancient Egypt over 3000 years ago. Bathymetric charts, are typically produced to support safety of surface or sub-surface navigation, and usually show seafloor relief or terrain as contour lines and selected depths (soundings), and typically also provide surface navigational information. Bathymetric maps may also use a Digital Terrain Model and artificial illumination techniques to illustrate the depths being portrayed. The global bathymetry is sometimes combined with topography data to yield a global relief model. Paleobathymetry is the study of past underwater depths.
A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and calm enough for a water vessel to pass safely. Such a navigable water is called a waterway, and is preferably with few obstructions against direct traverse that needed avoiding, such as rocks, reefs or trees. Bridges built over waterways must have sufficient clearance. High flow speed may make a channel unnavigable due to risk of ship collisions. Waters may be unnavigable because of ice, particularly in winter or high-latitude regions. Navigability also depends on context: a small river may be navigable by smaller craft such as a motorboat or a kayak, but unnavigable by a larger freighter or cruise ship. Shallow rivers may be made navigable by the installation of locks that regulate flow and increase upstream water level, or by dredging that deepens parts of the stream bed.
A chart datum is the water level surface serving as origin of depths displayed on a nautical chart. A chart datum is generally derived from some tidal phase, in which case it is also known as a tidal datum. Common chart datums are lowest astronomical tide (LAT) and mean lower low water (MLLW). In non-tidal areas, e.g. the Baltic Sea, mean sea level (MSL) is used. A chart datum is a type of vertical datum and must not be confused with the horizontal datum for the chart.
An ordnance datum or OD is a vertical datum used by an ordnance survey as the basis for deriving altitudes on maps. A spot height may be expressed as AOD for "above ordnance datum". Usually mean sea level (MSL) at a particular place is used for the datum. In particular:
The Illinois Waterway system consists of 336 miles (541 km) of navigable water from the mouth of the Calumet River at Chicago to the mouth of the Illinois River at Grafton, Illinois. Based primarily on the Illinois River, it is a system of rivers, lakes, and canals that provide a shipping connection from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico via the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.
River engineering is a discipline of civil engineering which studies human intervention in the course, characteristics, or flow of a river with the intention of producing some defined benefit. People have intervened in the natural course and behaviour of rivers since before recorded history—to manage the water resources, to protect against flooding, or to make passage along or across rivers easier. Since the Yuan Dynasty and Ancient Roman times, rivers have been used as a source of hydropower. From the late 20th century, the practice of river engineering has responded to environmental concerns broader than immediate human benefit. Some river engineering projects have focused exclusively on the restoration or protection of natural characteristics and habitats.
In geodesy, surveying, hydrography and navigation, vertical datum or altimetric datum, is a reference coordinate surface used for vertical positions, such as the elevations of Earth-bound features and altitudes of satellite orbits and in aviation. In planetary science, vertical datums are also known as zero-elevation surface or zero-level reference.
Voies navigables de France is the French navigation authority responsible for the management of the majority of France's inland waterways network and the associated facilities—towpaths, commercial and leisure ports, lock-keeper's houses and other structures. VNF was established in 1991 and took over the responsibility for all waterways from the National Office of Navigation in 1993. It is a public body and is under the control of the Minister of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Territorial Development. The headquarters of VNF are in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais with local offices throughout France.
This glossary of geography terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in geography and related fields, including Earth science, oceanography, cartography, and human geography, as well as those describing spatial dimension, topographical features, natural resources, and the collection, analysis, and visualization of geographic data. Related terms may be found in glossary of geology, glossary of agriculture, glossary of environmental science, and glossary of astronomy.
Fairway is a part of a water body containing the navigable channel, a route suitable for ships of the larger size.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Muilerman et al. 2018, p. 63.
- ↑ Wang, Lu; Xie, Ping; Xu, Chong-Yu; Sang, Yan-Fang; Chen, Jie; Yu, Tao (2 August 2021). "A framework for determining lowest navigable water levels with nonstationary characteristics" (PDF). Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment. 36 (2): 583–608. doi:10.1007/s00477-021-02058-1. eISSN 1436-3259. hdl:10852/92995. ISSN 1436-3240. S2CID 236780910.
- 1 2 3 4 Muilerman et al. 2018, p. 64.
- ↑ Muilerman et al. 2018, p. 14.
- ↑ UNECE 2017, p. 15.
- ↑ Muilerman et al. 2018, p. 67.
