Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about rivers
In the United Kingdom there is a vast diversity of watercourses. There are numerous names for running water: river, stream, beck, gill, bourne, burn etc., and no particular hierarchy relating these names to size. The meaning of "river" itself can be ambiguous: what is a river to one community might be a stream to another; and the names of rivers often change along their courses. This project page serves as a guideline for writing quality and standardized articles about the rivers of the UK.
The lists of rivers (in England, Scotland, Wales, and the list of rivers of the whole of Ireland) cover all main rivers – to Wikipedia these are notable. Ordinary watercourses are not desired in those lists, but some of them may meet the notability criteria and thus justify their own article. Where there is little that can be said about a river, for example if it is a network of closely connected tributaries, consider writing it as a section of its distributary. Writing about the smallest watercourses can be difficult too, due to the lack of source material. Many of the UK's smallest streams form part of a much larger river system or catchment area, and if no more than a couple of paragraphs could be written about the stream it may be best practice to merge the articles.
Please note that this guide is a generally accepted standard that all editors should follow. However, the suggestions on this page are merely guidelines, not rules written in stone. They permit the exercise of common sense, and have occasional exceptions. As stated in the Manual of Style, "consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise".
Article elements[edit]
Title[edit]
See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms).
- River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage.
- "River X" is used generally for notable rivers in the UK and Ireland, yet many other watercourses are, quite properly, locally and cartographically named "X Beck", "X Brook", "X Water", "X Race", "Afon X", "Nant X" e.g.Trout Beck in the Lake District and Nant Ceiswyn in Wales.
- "X river" and "X (river)" are not recommended.
Multiple rivers with the same name
Due to the fact that there are many rivers in the UK with the same name (e.g. there are at least four rivers in England called River Avon), the following method of disambiguation is proposed:
- The most important river can stay at the undisambiguated title, lesser known ones add a qualifier.
- In practice, most rivers needing disambiguation have been identified by the smallest appropriate political entity. So River Derwent becomes River Derwent, Yorkshire : River Derwent, Derbyshire : River Derwent, North East England & River Derwent, Cumbria.
- Most British rivers have used the River, place format for disambiguation rather than the River (parenthesis) format.
Rivers with multiple names
Occasionally, a river can have several genuinely distinct names. For example, the River Thames is called the River Isis beyond Oxford. The following rules are suggested for choosing a primary name for such a river:
- If the river is particularly famous under one name, then choose that name.
- If the section of the river that uses a particular name is much longer than other sections, then use that as the name.
- If everything else is equal, then choose the name for the section of the river closest to the river's mouth, since generally that is where the river is widest.
Infobox[edit]
| River Tees | |
|---|---|
 High Force on the River Tees | |
| Location | |
| Country | England |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | Cross Fell |
| • elevation | 754 m (2,474 ft) |
| Mouth | |
• location | North Sea |
| Length | 132 km (82 mi) |
| Basin size | 1,834 km2 (708 sq mi) |
| Discharge | |
| • average | sd |
Use the template {{Infobox river}} for representative images and basic information about a river. The example at right shows how it looks. See the template's discussion page for instructions, examples, and blank versions of the template to start with.
Maps[edit]
- Regional location
- Course
Maps of the river's course and of its catchment area (drainage basin) are highly desirable.
- Catchment
- Features of the course
See Template:Waterways legend and Wikipedia:Route diagram template
Images[edit]
There should be at least one picture, preferably a typical view. Important rivers should have additional pictures illustrating their notable features.
Article text[edit]
Article text structure
*Lead Paragraph
The first paragraph should be a self-contained description including the most important things to know; name(s) - both historic and current - in bold, location (countries/counties/seaboards), and notable facts about the river, such as longest, second longest, main waterway of a country, etc.
*Toponomy
The origin and meaning of the name and of any alternate names.
*Catchment area overview
This section can include numerical data on length, volume, drainage basin, etc. Boundaries, management areas, landscape and land use.
*Course
The narrative description of the course should proceed from the source of main headwater of the river downstream to its mouth, noting direction, size, major tributaries, human settlements, waterfalls, dams, reservoirs, lakes, notable bridges, aqueducts and so forth. This should be at least a paragraph and may be several paragraphs for long rivers.
*Geology
Main aquifers. Sinkholes or potholes.
*Hydrometry
Measurements of: Water quality. Water flow. Abstraction.
*Economy
A number of rivers have been used as means to transport people, goods, etc., and are still used so today. All such information should be described here.
*Ecology and fisheries
Mention distinctive plants and animals associated with any part of the river. Designated conservation areas, nature reserves, etc.
*Recreation and amenity
Uses of the river for sport, leisure craft, etc.
*Navigation
Canals and canalisation
*Heritage
Any historical uses of the river and its waters. Famous associations. Water mills.
*Flooding and flood defences
*Conflicts of interest
These exist on many rivers. Issues concerning abstraction, pollution, leisure uses, nature reserves, flood barriers.
Lists of tributaries[edit]
- List the tributaries, unless already done using the geobox, starting from the mouth and going upstream. Add important subtributaries in sublists. Major tributaries should be links if with sufficient article content (see above), minor tributaries should be names and may have sections instead e.g.
- River Medway (shares the Thames estuary)
etc.
c.f. River Bourne, Addlestone, which provides sections for its stream tributaries which are not considered rivers
- List separately cities/towns only along with the river, also in upstream order.
- List dams, locks, waterfalls, rapids, if there are more than a couple and/or they're not mentioned in the lead or course narrative.
- Consider presenting the information instead in a diagram for longer rivers - e.g. River Thames
Indexing[edit]
Every river article should be indexed in list of rivers by name, and indexed in list of rivers by continent, along with its major tributaries.
See:
- List of rivers of England
- List of rivers of Ireland for rivers in Northern Ireland
- List of rivers of Scotland
- List of rivers of Wales
Categories[edit]
Every article should have a category. If a river is restricted to one country, list in Category:rivers of country. If it runs through several, list in each country category.
Category:Rivers of the United Kingdom
Talk page[edit]
On Wikipedia, the primary purpose of a talk page (also referred to as a /Talk page) is to improve the contents of the corresponding article, from an encyclopedic point of view. Questions, challenges, excised text (due to confusion or bias, for example), arguments relevant to changing the text, and commentary on the article are typically placed on the talk page.
To remind users of this insert {{talk header}}
References and External links[edit]
Preferably refer to history, ecology, public policy, books, websites, etc.
Resources[edit]
Templates[edit]
{{WPUKgeo|class=Start|importance=Low}}
All articles that fall within the scope of the UK geography WikiProject should have the above template placed on their talk page. Sometimes, you will see a local "daughter" WikiProject template already there, in these cases, you should also add this UK template. You can add the template by editing in {{WPUKgeo}} at the top of the talk page.
The message box {{river}} is available to add to talk pages of river articles and gives:
 | Rivers NA‑class | ||||||
| |||||||
Image sources[edit]
Information[edit]
*Environment Agency
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/cams Dig down on this page, the .pdf files for each river have informative introductions on geology and landscape.
The River Nene: e.g.http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/commondata/acrobat/nene_final_document_1019108.pdf
*National River Flow Archive.Gauging station network.
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/uk_gauging_station_network.html
*EUGRIS Portal for soil and water management in Europe
*Scottish Environment Protection Agency
http://www.sepa.org.uk/data/index.htm
Maps[edit]
See:NASA World Wind software download. Home in to get screen shots. These images can be used as a basis for location maps.
Software[edit]
*MapMaker
Download of mapping software. Trial version for 30 days then run the Gratis version.(Steep learning curve if you have not used this type of software before).
http://www.mapmaker.com/download.asp
Style[edit]
Grammar and layout checklist
- The lead needs to adequately summarize the content of the article.
- There should not be anything in the lead not mentioned in the rest of the article.
- Only make wikilinks that are relevant to the context. Common words do not need wikilinking.
- A word only needs to be wikilinked once within each section.
- It is not recommended to specify the size of images. The sizes should be what readers have specified in their user preferences.
- Text should not be sandwiched between two adjacent images.
- All fair-use images need a fair use rationale.
- Image captions should not end with a full-stop if the caption does not form a complete sentence.
- Book references need the author, publisher, publishing date and page number.
- Web references need the author, publisher, publishing date, access date, language (if not English) and format (if a PDF file).
- Blogs and personal websites are not reliable sources.
- Inline citations belong immediately after punctuation marks.
- Each "notable resident" needs a reference.
- Portal links belong in the "see also" section.
- "Further info" links belong at the top of sections.
- Include lists only if they cannot be made into prose or their own article.
- Lists within prose should be avoided.
- Unspaced en dashes are used for ranges. Unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes are used for punctuation. The same applies to dashes in the footnotes. See WP:MOS#Dashes.
- "
" (non-breaking space) should be typed between numbers and units. - Imperial measurements should be accompanied by the metric equivalent in brackets, and vice versa. If possible, use a conversion template, eg. {{convert|5|mi|km|0}}.
- Whole numbers under ten should be spelled out as words, except when in lists, tables or infoboxes.
- Sentences should not start with a numeral. Either recast the sentence or spell the number out.
- Usually, only the first word in a section heading needs a capital letter.
- Short sections and paragraphs are discouraged.
- The words "current", "recent" and "to date" should be avoided as they become outdated.
- Ampersands should not be used, except when in a name, eg., Marks & Spencer.
- Southeast is one word (and may or may not be hyphenated). This does not apply when it is the name of an area, eg. South East England.
- In longer sentences, a comma may be needed before "and", "due to", "such as", "including", "as", "because" or "but".
- "Past few years" has a different meaning to "last few years".
- "Within" has a different meaning to "in".
- Full-stops are needed after each initial in someone's name.
- Hyphens should not be placed after words ending in ly, eg. widely-used phrase (except if the ly word could also describe the noun, eg. friendly-looking man)
- Do not use contractions, such as "can't" and "they're".
- "While" should only be used when emphasising that two events occur at the same time, or when emphasising contrast. It should not be used as an additive link.
- Using "with" as an additive link can lead to wordy and awkward prose, eg. the town has ten councillors, with one being the district mayor → the town has ten councillors; one is the district mayor
- Beginning a sentence with "there", when it does not stand for anything, leads to wordy prose, eg. There are ten houses in the village → The village has ten houses. The same applies to "it".
- Avoid weasel words, such as "it is believed that", "is widely regarded as", "some have claimed".
- Avoid peacock terms, such as "beautiful", "famous", "popular", "well-known", "significant", "important" and "obvious".
- Avoid informal words, such as "carry out" and "pub".
- Avoid overly-formal or archaic words, such as "circa", "utilise", "whilst", "upon", "commence" and "prior".
- Avoid wordy terms, such as "the majority of" and "a number of".
- Avoid vague words, such as "various", "many", "several", "long" and "almost"
- Avoid phrases with redundant words, such as "is located in", "the two are both", "they brought along", "they have plans to", "they were all part of", "the last ones to form", "both the towns", "outside of the town", "all of the towns", "received some donations", "still exists today", "it also includes others", "many different towns", "available records show" and "in the year 2007".
[edit]
List articles[edit]
List of rivers of the United Kingdom
- Lists of rivers by country, arranged by coast into which the various rivers discharge
List of rivers by average discharge
List of largest drainage basins
List of European rivers with alternative names
List of river name etymologies