Monday, December 15, 2008

Silt

We had a big rain recently. I live next to the mouth of the small river that flows through Zamami. After only ten minutes of rain I was amazed at how quickly the water hit the ground, collected into streamulets (I made that up, didn't I?), grabbed some dirt, and flowed out into the ocean.


[after only 10 minutes!]


[20 minutes, the ocean is not a willing mixer]

2 comments:

Son of Higashi said...

We get the same thing here in Higashi. All the pineapple farms run-off like mad during a big rain. The stuff is called 赤土 あかつち, red dirt. I'm very interested in what effect it has on the immediate sea life.

Dave said...

I think most of our silt runoff is probably due to the civilization that surrounds the river. All of the upstream water from the watershed collects behind the dam. So I wonder how silty it would be minus human development?
I also think quite hard about the effect on the oceans. Surely there are creatures who benefit and others who quit breathing for a little while or forever. I guarantee you some species come TO the runoff because there is also a plethora of food flowing in that dirty water. But our river flows into the mostly dead harbor, which has been dredged, so probably not much further harm.