page_title: River engineering
section_title: Canalization of rivers
hierarchical_section_title: River engineering / Canalization of rivers
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Frachtschiffe auf dem Rhein bei Karlsruhe. Dieser Abschnitt des Oberrheins ist begradigt, aber nicht gestaut. English: Merchant ships on the Rhine at Karlsruhe. This part of the Upper Rhine war straightened by Tulla, but never regulated by means of dams. Français&#160;: Des péniches croisent sur le Rhin à Karlsruhe. Cette partie haute du cours du Rhin a été canalisée par Tulla, mais elle ne possède pas de barrages. Nederlands: m.s. Navigare, indertijd gebouwd als m.s. Flörsheim en het schip heeft later gevaren onder de naam m.s. Martin Bell ENI Nummer: 04605650 Bouwjaar: 1980 Werf van aanbouw: Ebert &amp; Sohne in Neckarsteinach, Duitsland Lengte: 105,06 m Breedte: 11,07 m Diepgang: 1,55 m Laadvermogen: 2856 ton Voortstuwing: MAK 1197 pk
context_page_description: River engineering is the process of planned 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. From Roman times, rivers have been used as a source of hydropower. From the late 20th century, river engineering has had environmental concerns broader than immediate human benefit and some river engineering projects have been concerned exclusively with the restoration or protection of natural characteristics and habitats.
  Hydromodification encompasses the systematic response to alterations to riverine and non-riverine water bodies such as coastal waters and lakes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has defined hydromodification as the "alteration of the hydrologic characteristics of coastal and non-coastal waters, which in turn could cause degradation of water resources." River engineering has often resulted in unintended systematic responses.
context_section_description: Rivers whose discharge is liable to become quite small at their low stage, or which have a somewhat large fall, as is usual in the upper part of rivers, cannot be given an adequate depth for navigation purely by works which regulate the flow; their ordinary summer level has to be raised by impounding the flow with weirs at intervals across the channel, while a lock has to be provided alongside the weir, or in a side channel, to provide for the passage of vessels. A river is thereby converted into a succession of fairly level reaches rising in steps up-stream, providing still-water navigation comparable to a canal; but it differs from a canal in the introduction of weirs for keeping up the water-level, in the provision for the regular discharge of the river at the weirs, and in the two sills of the locks being laid at the same level instead of the upper sill being raised above the lower one to the extent of the rise at the lock, as usual on canals.
  Canalization secures a definite available depth for navigation; and the discharge of the river generally is amply sufficient for maintaining the impounded water level, as well as providing the necessary water for locking. Navigation, however, is liable to be stopped during the descent of high floods, which in many cases rise above the locks; and it is necessarily arrested in cold climates on all rivers by long, severe frosts, and especially by ice. Many small rivers, like the Thames above its tidal limit, have been rendered navigable by canalization, and several fairly large rivers have thereby provided a good depth for vessels for considerable distances inland. Thus the canalized Seine has secured a navigable depth of 10​¹⁄₂ feet (3.2 metres) from its tidal limit up to Paris, a distance of 135 miles, and a depth of 6​³⁄₄ feet (2.06 metres) up to Montereau, 62 miles higher up.
caption: An early large channelization was performed by Johann Gottfried Tulla on the Upper Rhine.
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