水力学考博专业英语.docVIP

LESSON 1 WATER In the winter of wet years the streams ran full-freshet, and they swelled the river until it sometimes raged and boiled bank full, and then it was a destroyer. The river tore the edges of the farm lands and washed whole acres down; it toppled barns and houses into itself, to go floating and bobbing away. It trapped cows and pigs and sheep and drowned them in its muddy brown water and carried them to the sea. Then when the late spring came the river drew in from its edges and the sand banks appeared. And in the summer the river didnt at all run above ground. There were dry years too... The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up... And it never failed that during the dry years the people forget the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way. East of Eden, Iohn Steinbeck, 1952 J ohn Steinbeck wrote the above words 50 years ago to describe the hydrology of the Salinas Valley in northern California. In doing so he revealed an attitude toward water that was held by many in the early part of the twentieth century. Water was always assumed to be available and no worried about its longevity until it seemed threatened. We perhaps have a more realistic attitude today and know that we must preserve and protect our precious and limited natural resources, including water. Although our intentions toward preserving the environment may be good, we sometimes act without full consideration of all possible outcomes. In 1990, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. To reduce the mass of smog-creating chemicals released by vehicles, gasoline sold in certain urban areas was required