Tag: water

The line of debris deposited at the highest reach of the tide or storm surge on a beach — seaweed, driftwood, shells, crab shells, feathers, plastic, rope, and whatever else the sea was carrying. The wrack line is the ocean's high-water mark, redrawn with every tide, and it is one of the most ecologically productive zones on a beach: the decaying organic matter feeds sand hoppers, flies, shorebirds, and the entire web of life at the land-sea boundary.

 The reflection of moonlight on water. Similar to mångata but without the implication of a path — more the shimmer and scatter of light across the surface.

A large, flat, grassy, treeless plain — or, in the American Southwest, a broad, low-lying area of fertile, well-watered ground along a river, suitable for cultivation. Las Vegas was named for the meadows that the springs there sustained in the desert.

A shallow, seasonal wetland that fills with winter rain on top of an impermeable hardpan layer, holds water through spring, and dries completely by summer — leaving a cracked, bare depression that gives no sign of what it held. In the weeks between filling and drying, vernal pools support an extraordinary community of life found almost nowhere else: fairy shrimp, tiger salamanders, specialized wildflowers that bloom in concentric rings as the water recedes. Most of California's Central Valley vernal pools have been destroyed by development and agriculture. The ones that remain are among the most endangered ecosystems on the continent.

A valley or streambed in the desert that is dry except during rainy periods — the Arabic equivalent of the Spanish arroyo. Wadis are the drainage channels of arid landscapes across North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Middle East, carved by flash floods that may come only a few times a year or a few times a decade. Between floods, wadis serve as travel corridors, gathering places, and sites of settlement — the trees, the wells, and the shade are found in the wadi bed, where the last water sank into the sand.

A broad, flat, sandy channel in the desert through which water flows intermittently — wider and less defined than an arroyo, often braided, with a surface of loose sand and gravel. Washes are the rivers of the desert, present in form even when absent in flow. Desert plants concentrate along their edges, drawing on the subsurface moisture that lingers after floods. A wash is a river's ghost, or its promise.

A natural depression in sandstone that collects and holds rainwater — similar to a tinaja but often larger and occurring on slickrock surfaces rather than in canyon bottoms. Waterpockets can be the size of bathtubs or swimming pools, and in the desert they are oases in stone. Capitol Reef National Park was originally called Wayne Wonderland but was renamed for the Waterpocket Fold — a massive geologic formation lined with thousands of these basins.

The entire area of land that drains water to a single point — a river mouth, a lake, a confluence. Every drop of rain that falls within a watershed eventually reaches the same destination (or soaks into the ground trying). Watersheds are the natural units of hydrology: they are defined not by political boundaries but by topography — the ridgelines that divide one drainage from the next. The word also means a turning point, which is fitting: a watershed ridge is the point where water decides which way to go.

The upper surface of the zone of saturated ground — the level below which every pore and fracture in the soil and rock is filled with water. Above the water table, the ground is merely damp; below it, the ground is full. The water table rises with rain and falls with drought, and its depth determines what can grow, where wells must reach, and whether basements flood. It is the hidden waterline of the landscape.

A series of standing waves formed where fast current hits slower water or a change in gradient, creating a rhythmic sequence of peaks and troughs that a raft or kayak rides through like a roller coaster. The most purely fun feature in whitewater — predictable, exhilarating, and usually safe.