Water and electrical energy

Water as motive force.

The motive force of water has been harnessed ever since ancient times to provide the mechanical energy required to drive all sorts of machines. The most commonly-known example is the water mill, where the water of a stream was channelled to turn a special wheel - the grinding wheel - connected by gears. Water has been used to drive many other “machines” over the centuries, from steam-driven pile drivers to saw mills and spinning mills, etc...

Hydrographic basins

The territory that collects water precipitation from various sources and channels it all into the same body of water is known as the hydrographic basin. This basin is delineated by watershed lines plotted along the tops of the ridges that separate one water basin from the next.

Hydrographic basins vary widely in size depending on the importance of the bodies of water they contain. A river basin is divided into as many secondary basins as the number of its tributaries, and each tributary has as many sub-basins as there are sub-tributaries.