Kanawha
Kanawha is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Coordinates
- 38.37°, -81.67°
About Kanawha
The Kanawha River ( kə-NAW-ə) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of the state since early in the 19th century.
It is formed at the town of Gauley Bridge in northwestern Fayette County, approximately 35 mi (56 km) SE of Charleston, by the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers 2 mi upstream from Kanawha Falls. The waterfall is 24 ft high and has been a barrier to fish movement for more than 1 million years. The river flows generally northwest, in a winding course on the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, through Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason counties, past the cities of Charleston and St. Albans, and numerous smaller communities. It joins the Ohio at Point Pleasant. An environmental overview and summary of natural and human factors affecting water quality in the watershed was published in 2000.
Paleo-Indians, the earliest indigenous peoples, lived in the valley and the heights by 10,000 BC as evidenced by archaeological artifacts such as Clovis points.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Kanawha River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Kanawha in Depth
Geography
The Kanawha River lends its name to a major geological section of the Appalachian Highlands physiographic region of the United States called a physiographic region. A physiographic region is a large portion of land that is grouped by several factors. Each region has similar geology, topography, and groups of plants and animals. There are eight physiographic divisions in the 48 contiguous United States. Each division is divided into provinces, there are 25 provinces in the United States. Each province is then divided into sections, creating 85 different physiographic sections in the United States. The Kanawha section is one of those 85 sections.
The Kanawha section encompasses areas of Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio.
Hydrology and ecology
In addition to the New and Gauley River headwaters, the Kanawha is joined at Charleston by the Elk River, at St. Albans by the Coal River, and at Poca by the Pocatalico River.
Major impoundments in the Kanawha River watershed include Claytor Lake and Bluestone Lake on the New River, Summersville Lake on the Gauley River, and Sutton Lake on the Elk River. Collectively, they have a capacity of 14 percent of the average annual flow at Charleston. The reservoirs on New and Gauley Rivers reduced the estimated 100-year flood discharge under 20th-century climate by about half at Kanawha Falls.
Kanawha Falls is the upstream limit of several fish species that broadly inhabit the Ohio River watershed.
History
Archaeological artifacts, such as Clovis points and later projectiles, indicate prehistoric indigenous peoples living in the area from the 12,500 BC era. Peoples of later cultures continued to live along the valley and heights. Those of the Adena culture built at least 50 earthwork mounds and 10 enclosures in the area between Charleston and Dunbar, as identified by an 1882 to 1884 survey by the Bureau of Ethnology (later part of the Smithsonian Institution). Three of their mounds survive in the valley, including Criel Mound at present-day South Charleston, West Virginia. Evidence has been found of the Fort Ancient culture peoples, who had villages that survived to the time of European contact, such as Buffalo and Marmet. They were driven out by Haudenosaunee from present-day New York.
Economy
The watershed contains significant deposits of coal and natural gas. As of 1998, about 7 percent of the coal mined in the United States came from the Kanawha River watershed.
A thriving chemical industry along the river banks provides a significant part of the local economy.
In colonial times, the wildly fluctuating level of the river prevented its use for transportation.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Kanawha River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Kanawha: Key Facts
| Length | 156 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 432 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 31,691 km² |
| Mouth | Ohio River |
| Drainage system | Kanawha River drainage basin |
| Tributaries | Coal River, Elk River, New River, Gauley River, Pocatalico River, Paint Creek, Armstrong Creek, Campbells Creek (West Virginia) |
Facts from Wikidata Q918867 (CC0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Kanawha: Quick Answers
- Where is Kanawha?
- Kanawha is located in United States, at 38.3679° N, 81.6677° W.
- Are there dams on the Kanawha?
- No dam on the Kanawha is recorded in the YearMaps dam index, which covers major structures only.