Friday, October 11, 2019

Rivers

I used to wonder why rivers in Liberia weren't more often used for transport and trade. It would have to be cheaper than building roads. Wouldn't it?

It turns out lot of places along the rivers look like this. I didn't see much of that near the coast.

Want to try a portage?. Or, if you're more ambitious, here...

2 comments:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Once you knew that rivers could be used in that way, from seeing it other places, you might try to dredge and deepen sections, and later canalize them. But that would take large organised groups, and upkeep.

james said...

And explosives--some of those rapids are over basalt.

The devil is in the details. Even with large organized groups, you'd need to have a central channel deep enough to handle dry-season levels, and that would probably run too fast in the rainy season for river-side fishermen to catch as much.

I lived by the coast where the rivers are nice and wide--and bridged. I never saw those rapids.