We regret to announce that we've discontinued GORP's trivia section. Check out our Trivia archives for questions and answers about the world's people, places, and things. But sometimes, the waters coursing for thousands of miles never quite reach an open outlet to a sea or a vast inland lake.
Nature is sometimes to blame, but human beings are more and more often the culprits.
There are two great examples of rivers denied their natural destiny, one in North America reduced to a trickle by water-poor populations and the other in Africa arrested by the largest inland delta in the world. It is the incontestable force that once carved Arizona's Grand Canyon. However, today, as a result of the process begun in 1922 with the seven state Colorado River Compact, drainage and reclamation work on and along the river has diverted almost all of its total annual flow. Supposed to empty into the Gulf of California, the Colorado is today a pitiful stream when it flows across the Mexican border before drying up in the desert. The Colorado River system was the first water basin in which large-scale water management practices were employed.