Purpose of River?

Question

what can be the purpose of a river when a factory is situated beside it???
why does a factory prefer being built beside a river?

Answer 1

Rivers can provide many things.

1. Transportation. Water transportation, the cheapest form of transportation enables the factory to get its raw material in and ship its exports out cheaply.

e.g. A pulp and paper plant can ship its raw logs in by water convert it to paper and ship its product out all over the world due to its location on a river.

2. Energy. If you have a power plant or machinery used in the making of steels or metals you need a cheap source of cooling. Water circulating through sealed jackets in the machinery takes away the heat of friction or manufacturing.

It provides cooling for your energy source. If you have a steam generating plant, it provides water for heat generation.

Indeed in the old grain mill the grinding stones were powered by the gravitational drop of water on a wheel.

e.g. in our paper mill water provides cooling for the bearings. From the steam plant it goes into coils to dry the paper. Once the wood is changed into a raw mush due to the presence of Na2S and steam, the "pulp" is moved from interim process (digesters) to interim process (fibre bleaching) as a water slurry of water and wood fibers. Then the bleached and screened pulp slurry (aka. stock) is sent through pumps and pipes to large circular screens or decker screens and made into a sheet and pressed and dried in dryers with high temperature steam coils.

3. Resource. Your factory product requires a process that requires water or that product contains a large amount of water. So placing your factory next to a river allows a very low cost access to that resource.

e.g. a canning or bottling factory which makes food products or pop.

4. Waste conduit. This is not as common as it used to be. Modern governments have legislated laws against this. But in older factories especially those built in the middle of the last century used the rivers of the world as sewers.

5. Labor and market. Factories just aren't machines. It is also an activity of and needing human labor. Humans congregate around water edges where food was plentiful.

Due to the costs of transportation. Due to the fact of requiring a cheap labor supply. Due to the fact that it is cheaper to ship raw materials in bulk to a plant and make a value product close to your prime market. It makes sense to build your factory close to human populations.

If you look at world maps. You will find almost every single large city in the world is built on a river or at a river estuary. London, Paris, Washington, New York, Shanghai, Toronto, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Rome, Cairo, Rotterdam, you will find a river if not there but very close by. Every great civilization are founded near rivers or a water's edge.

So you build a factory where your resources are, where your laborers are, where your markets are. The first place you will find a factory is near a river because that is where people are.

Answer 2

C'mon sweetie, think it through. Why would a factory be next to a river, a place where it can get water for the manufacturing of its products and a cheap place to discharge its effluents? Gettitng the picture yet?

Answer 3

as a source of water, as a means of transportation

Answer 4

Water resources....

Answer 5

differ as your need.