| Change log entry 51868 | |
|---|---|
| Processed by: | richwarm (2013-11-28 00:44:25 UTC) |
| Comment: |
"Dikes have raised Yellow River (hanging river) 65 ft above surrounding land." "For thousands of years, the Chinese have controlled the Yellow River as it crosses its floodplain on its last several hundred miles' journey to the sea, by constraining it within artificial banks, levees. The idea is to prevent floods. But the river is the world’s siltiest and through time it deposits this silt on its channel bed, which rises higher and higher above the surrounding floodplain. The Chinese have kept the river on its course by raising the levees ever higher. Hence the term “hanging river”. But this is a “doubleor-quits” strategy. Chinese history is peppered with disasters when the river breaks its levees and floods across the land." http://www.waterbucket.ca/aw/sites/wbcaw/documents/media/47.pdf |
| Diff: |
+ 懸河 悬河 [xuan2 he2] /"hanging" river (embanked one whose riverbed is higher than the surrounding floodplain)/(literary) waterfall/cataract/(fig.) torrent of words/ |