Does a river's volume affect it's flow rate

carol · Post by **carol** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:55 pm

This is my topic - I am trying to help my Son with this Science Project. We have completed the research - but we need to know how would be the best way to demonstrate this? Would a stream table be our best bet?

We need to demonstrate how a river (or stream) volume affects it's flow rate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Carol

deleted-71447 · Post by **deleted-71447** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:50 pm

Hi Carol,
Usually, it's difficult to estimate the total volume of water in some length of river. It is often easier and more effective to use the height of water above the river bed to estimate the flow rate. There are many datasets available for stream stage - flow relationships. A good place to start is:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv/

Data are available for sites throughout the US. For you and your son, a good place to start would be a graph that compares stage (depth of water) to the flow rate for a single river. To develop a more complicated project, there are many possibilities. It might be interesting to plot several different types of rivers on the same stage-flow plot.

Chris