What would a river be measered in?

Question

Like killometers..meters..millimeters..centimeters..?

Answer 1

It depends on what aspect of the river you are measuring. If you are taking about length or width, it would be miles or kilometers. Depth can be in meters, kilometers or miles. Volume can be measure in Liters, gallons, etc.

Answer 2

As simple as those methods listed so far sound-they aint. How do you determine where a river begins? And how do you calculate the volume of water transported per day?

Measuring the width of a river can also be deceiving; many rivers are wide & shallow, others are thin but deep- which one carries more water? A better way is calculating the cross-sectional area through the river (width* depth) to gauge how much water this river carries. A river's cross-section is never perfectly rectangular, but the formula (width*depth) gives a crude estimation of cross sectional area.

If you can find the exact cross sectional area of a river (or even just use the crude estimation) then multiplying the velocity of the river by the cross sectional area will give you the river's discharge: the volume of water transported by the river in a certain amount of time (The river Rhine's dischare is a whopping 2200m^3/s).

So what about the earlier question of where a river starts? It's not as easy as it seems-tributaries flow into streams, and these flow into rivers. No river has just one source however, the river nile flows through many countries, carrying water from all of them into the mediterainian. One tributarie will connect with another, to form a stream, more tribuaties will join on further downstream making the stream get larger. Eventually the stream will get so large-or join another stream- that it is no longer considered a stream:its a river. So the distance between the mouth of this river into the sea, and the point where it's so large that it is classed as a river will give you its lenght.

Did I make a simple question complex? Sorry-I may have got carried away.

Answer 3

well, the length of the river would be kilometers. (think like this kilometers = miles, meters = yards, centimeters = inches). So if you would measure something in miles, it would be kilometers ect. If you are asking for the flow (how much water is running in the river) it would be measured in cubic feet of water per second. Or liters per second.

Answer 4

Meters

Answer 5

In standard international river units and parts thereof.

Answer 6

if it is wide: kilometers, deep is should be in meters.