The Tennessee Valley Authority donated to the state a 13,000-acre tract that includes one of North America's most biologically diverse rivers.
But rising demand for clean electricity in burgeoning tropical cities, and new roads to areas once considered impossible to access, has led to plans for over 450 dams for the three mega-diverse river basins.
Notable Holocene climatic changes varied from region to region, whilst the dynamics of floodplain environments were equally diverse, with river channel changes significantly affecting human settlement.
A recent boom in hydroelectric development in the world's most diverse tropical river basins is currently threatening aquatic biodiversity on an unprecedented scale.
"Species extinctions and basin-wide declines in fisheries and other ecosystem services are certain to accompany new hydropower in the world's mega diverse tropical rivers".
Ms. Prichard has an undeniable gift for finding a spontaneous-seeming poetry in an urban patois fed by diverse ethnic rivers.
Coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific constitute the center of diversity for marine fishes, whereas continental freshwater fishes are most diverse in large river basins of tropical rainforests, especially the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong basins.
"It's a very diverse and abundant river".
It seems clear that these efforts will have to be redoubled, not only to meet human needs but also to protect the diverse ecosystems the river nourishes on its way from its headwaters in the Colorado Rockies to the Gulf of California.
Fractal-like patterns occur widely in nature, in phenomena as diverse as clouds, river networks, geologic fault lines, mountains, coastlines, animal coloration, snow flakes, crystals, blood vessel branching, and ocean waves.
