The Po's of Italy

Italy has an extraordinary landscape. Italy is very famous for its romantic atmosphere; houses at riverfront and relaxing gondola rides. A common attraction of Italy, besides the art, is the gorgeous rivers that flow through the towns. However, the rivers also serve for trade routes among the locals.

Restaurant and attraction strip along the river. Transportation by gondola.

The country itself actually has over 1000 different rivers. There are three prominent ones however  named Po, Tiber, and the Amo.

The main Rivers of Italy, not including the much smaller ones

The Po river is the largest in the country, stretching relatively 420 miles, is it about the same length as the Noatak river in Alaska. The Po river is the main point of industry in Italy. in 2002 relatively 1/3 of Italy's population lived along the Po river.

The Po River winds through the country side and cities. The rivers curves around the many hills  out east towards the  Adriatic Sea.

The course of the Po River

The Po river has 141 tributaries connecting to it. Tributaries are streams or smaller rivers that connect to the main one to help increase its size. The tributary itself does not lead to the ocean directly though. When two tributaries meet, they create a confluence. This continues with more tributaries meet up and converging until the main stem is created and leads out to the ocean/sea. The Po river is below sea level leading to very accessible and high water tables. The streams that feed into the main stem fill up quickly and the river is subject to frequent and high flood waters.

Po River Tributary map

Thee main use of the river is for agriculture. The Po River is located in the Po Valley, also called the Po Basin. The Basin can be divided into two parts. The upper portion of the valley is more dry and not suitable for farming, whereas the lower section of the valley where more tributaries are located serves for for agriculture works. The farms are located in the synclines of the land with steep anticlines along the outsides. The water flows down the anticlines easily even though there are many rocks in the way because of the porous landscape. A porous landscape means that the the water can move through the rocks easily and quickly based off the porosity of the rocks. Italy's land is very porous.

Synclines are created when the earth folds on itself due to compression. The Earth gets pushed together, but neither buckles or breaks and instead folds. The anticline is the steeper portion of the slope and the thickest part of the fold.

The Po river, along with most of Italy is very mild with a subtropical climate. This means that the country has cold winters and moderate summers. However they also do have extremely hot hot days that occur sometimes in the summer as well as days where the rain gets dumped on them. The reaction for the soil is very good. The area towards the end of the Po valley is a rich a fertile alluvial fan. With all the different streams flowing, the ground is perfect for farming. In some places the Po river almost gets dried out because of how much farming occurs, but is then quickly and easy replaced naturally. 

Alluvial fans are created when sediments and build up get caught in a stream or
river and eventually get taken away. The water gradient declines causing it to flow in different directions and break up.

Italy is certainly considered a permeable slope which means it can absorb rain water.The Pedogenic regime (soil forming environments which develop distinct soil characteristics) that Italy has is called Calcification. This means that the land is rich with organic matter and vegetation  Water is able to move fluidly through the soil. The exact type of soil with the Calcification class is called Mollisol which is perfect for agriculture. The ground moves slow and calmly (in most cases). Permeable slopes move in a fashion called creep where the ground sags and slopes slow and steadily. 

Example of Creep. creeping over time is noticeable in the hills.
This happens over many years and shows how the land moves
slowly downhill.

Even though the ground most often moves at a consistently slow pace, it is highly susceptible to mass wasting. Mass wasting is the down-slope movement of angular slope material. The most common type of mas wasting in Italy are flows. This can either be debris, which contains all sorts of rocks and trees as well as other things, to just mud flows. Both of which move very quickly and look like swift dark water. 

The different types of Mass Wasting

The slopes in the Po valley are perfect for mass wasting, however there haven't been too many large incidents over the years in the area.