[Talk-us] Waterway directionality in drainage canals

Nathan Edgars II neroute2 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 28 10:24:05 BST 2012


It's the standard to draw a waterway in the direction of flow. I've 
questioned this several times, but it's an ingrained default.

My question is more specific: what happens to a drainage canal that 
reverses direction? I offer the Everglades and surrounding agricultural 
land as an example. There are huge "water conservation areas" that store 
water. When it rains, gates are closed and opened to direct water into 
these. During a drought, gates send water back out into the canals for 
local use. When there's a big storm, water will instead go directly out 
to sea.

So there are a lot of major canals that have no fixed direction. How 
should these be mapped? Is there any existing scheme that can show how 
water flows under different conditions?



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