Hydrology of New Zealand

Physical map of water ways 

New Zealand is covered in approximately 180000 kilometers of mapped rivers and 3820 lakes with a surface area of a Hectare or larger. The country also used to be covered in large sums of wetlands.  These are caused when the ground is over saturated with water causing the surplus of ground water to become visible on land. These wet lands though are endangered because of heavy draining for farming with only 2% of it being left. There are two large bodies of water that occur on the Islands there is Lake Taupo on the North Island, and Lake Te Anau on the southern.

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is the largest lake in the entire country with a surface area of 616 square kilometers.  With the eruption of 186 A.D. and the   collapse of the Taupo caldera Lake Taupo was formed.  The formation and rapid filling plus the eruption of the super volcano the biggest Outwash flood occurred in the country's history. An Outwash is a flood usually from glaciers or volcanic activity.  They contain large amounts of sediment that has moved with the water from either the glacier or the water source in this case the lake. 

Sutherland Falls

This country is also well known for its large amounts of rivers and because its is a mountainous region on both the Northern and Southern Island's it has many waterfalls.  This is the result of the soil being unable to absorb more water so the water is able to flow in a process called overland flow.  Add that with the topography and gravitational water occurs as waterfalls.  The country's largest waterfall is on Southern Island called Sutherland Falls.





This is work cited if it blocks my other one again.

http://easybib.com/public/list/key/f9309c

Works Cited

Lake Taupo. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Lake_taupo_landsat.jpg>.

"New Zealand Physical Map." By Maps.com from Maps.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.maps.com/ref_map.aspx?pid=12228>.

"Outwash Plain." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Sept. 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outwash_plain>.

"Sutherland Falls (Fiordland, South Island, New Zealand)." Sutherland Falls (Fiordland, South Island, New Zealand). N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.world-of-waterfalls.com/new-zealand-sutherland-falls.html>.

"Wetlands of New Zealand." Wetlands of New Zealand. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.wetlands.co.nz/>.

"What Causes Wetlands to Form? - Curiosity." Curiosity. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-causes-wetlands-form>.