Jim Best, professor in natural science at the University, co-authored an atlas titled “The World Atlas of Rivers, Estuaries, and Deltas,” which summarizes the structure concerning river systems and describes its effect on human civilization.
Best worked on the piece with Stephen Darby, professor of physical geography at the University of Southampton, Luciana Esteves, researcher for the Global Challenges Research Fund, and Carol Wilson, professor of geomorphology at Louisiana State University.
The Daily Illini had the opportunity to sit down with Best, who said that the goal of his new publication was to portray how environments and, subsequently, human civilization, have been shaped by various natural processes.
“What can we do as scientists, physical scientists, social scientists and a range of interested parties to use exciting developments in modern technology to actually help us better manage these environments in the future,” Best said.
Best then explained that when you look at previous civilizations, such as the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians, they flourished due to the utilization of river systems within their society. In the Egyptians’ case, they used the Nile River to grow their crops.
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“The Egyptians were actually developing technology to measure the flow of the Nile, especially when the flow was going up or when it was going down,” Best said. “What that meant is that the dynasties could begin to predict how good a flood year was going to be, and if they knew that, they could begin to predict how the crop yields were gonna be good or bad.”
An example of such technology for prediction, according to Best, was the nilometer, a well connected to the river with a stone column used to measure the water levels of the river every day.
“What they could do with this nilometer with this river gauge is that they could begin to say when the flood was beginning to rise,” Best said. “They would know by comparing it to previous years, whether it was going to be a big flood, a disastrous flood or whether it was going to be a dry year.”
“So they were using a predictive ability of what they knew about the river and how it was going to flood to begin to think about how people living in the valley could use that water for cultivation,” Best added.
These river systems predict future crop gains and in recent years were used for hydropower. At the same time, it is important to note that the supply of river systems has become a bigger concern day by day.
“We can look at some rivers here in the States, like the Colorado River. It’s very regulated, and so the downstream supply becomes very limited and critical,” Best said. “If you think about the amount of water that’s supplied downstream often that’s cut drastically, some of the areas of biggest political tension across the world now are connected with large-scale hydropower.”
Regarding the visuals of the atlas, which incorporates physical maps, photos of ancient tech, diagrams explaining geographic processes and climate maps, Best said he wanted appealing visuals so that readers could easily understand the intricate parts of rivers.
“What we tried to do is make it something that was, hopefully, visually attractive, and it was something that had this information in bite-sized chunks,” Best added.
For more information on the book, you can find The World Atlas of Rivers, Estuaries, and Deltas at Amazon or your local bookstore.
