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Updated by Dr. James Larson
Dec 09, 2010 12:36
This is a slightly altered re-creation of the overall conceptual diagram we talked about.
Several people pointed out that if we include the plume and the lower river as "rivermouth" there would be a lot of confusion when discussing this with outside people (The plume, a kilometer into the lake, clearly isn't "in" the rivermouth the way most people think of it). Jim Nicholas and I talked about this just briefly, and I think renaming the "Zone of Confusion" the Rivermouth, and referring to this larger system as the River-Lake Mixing Zone solves that problem in many ways.
I've kept the zone of confusion terminology in trying to establish where the boundary between Rivermouth and Lower River is. I think this could be defined in terms of deposition of sediment, but I don't remember a clear consensus on that.
I also attached the power-point document I used to create this, so that others can alter as needed/desired.
I like that this conveys the three major parts: lower river, rivermouth, and plume and the respective influences of watershed and lake. I also am in favor of the simplicity of it as a primary conceptual diagram.
My concern about calling this the River-Lake Mixing Zone is that the phrase does not immediately convey the ecological significance, that that this is an ecosystem much like a marine estuary. Although River-Lake Mixing Zone is a useful term from a hydrologic standpoint, it may not generate the same understanding of the biological and hydrologic intersection that these places represent. As a result, I am more in favor of Rivermouth Ecosystem to describe the whole system (lower river, rivermouth, plume), rivermouth zone to describe the zone of confusion, and rivermouth to describe the edge of the shoreline.
I recommend putting a large arrow at the lower-valley end of the diagram in addition to the plume to represent the bi-directional flow.
I made a couple of changes that I described above and have attached an alternate version.
Ok, so I like the the different terminology and I don't like it. I don't think this diagram ends anywhere. The plume doesn't stop or disappear, it just becomes part of the Lake: Any endpoint would be arbitrary. I don't think this fits the definition of ecosystem. Do we have to call the whole thing anything?
I don't like the big arrow pointing up. There is an overwhelming directionality to this kind of a system, water and biota are not flowing equally in both directions.
Thinking about it, this may be too general a diagram overall.