Talk:Merkys River

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Comments a map would be useful. --Lysytalk 05:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Comprehension issues

What do the following mean?

  • "The river is fed by streams and therefore..." — don't most rivers have tributaries? How does this make this river "cool in summer" and minimize fluctuations of the water level?
  • "At the end of the 19th century the watershed area of Merkys grew by some 410 km² as its tributary Ūla River overtook some of Kotra River watershed area." — What does "overtook" mean? Rivers aren't sentinent beings acting autonomously, so why did these drainage bassins change? Engineering?

Lupo 09:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, first thing is easy and it should be "underground streams." The second is more complicated. It was a natural process. Ūla and Kotra form one river at first, but then at some point that one river breaks into two rivers flowing into two different directions (anti-confluence :]). Sometime in the 19th century Ūla started getting far more water from that one common river and its drainage area grew. Don't know the details, maybe will try to dig out later. Renata 10:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Allright. Trying to live up to my reputation as a "prolific digger" :-), some more things to consider: The article also mentions an average discharge of Merkys of 3 m³/s (above the canal). How does this fit with [1] (35.3 m³/s at Puvociai) or [2] (31.8 m³/s)? lt:Merkys gives 33.4 m³/s, without source. The first of these links also mentions that the Merkys was a clean river; compare also with [3]. And then there's also a groundwater report on Lithuania [4], but I'm having trouble downloading it. Lupo 11:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
"Anti-confluence": fork? branch? Lupo 11:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Ha! I am a digger too → river bifurcation :) Renata 00:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Will dig into polution later. Encyclopedia gives these numbers for dicharge:
Near Valkininkai (26 km NE from Varėna): max - 91, average - 5, min - 1.8 and 2.55 (winter/summer)
Near Varėna: max - 356, average - 21, min - 5.40 and 8.21
Near Puvočiai (10 km from Merkinė): max - 498, average - 32.2, min - 6.76 and 13.7
Now Žagarinė is a tiny village 1 km SW of Baltoji Vokė. Map & Another. Renata 12:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)