How many underground rivers are there in the world?

there popular misconception groundwater occurrence- there lots of free-flowing underground rivers. makes me think of subterranean river shown in introductory segment of 1970s saturday morning television program, "land of lost." know- 3 boobs on rubber raft go plunging off time-chasm , wind in mesozoic t-rex named "grumpy"... forever menaced these hissing "sleestak" things comically-inefficient cross-bows.
had love show, if had access marijuana then...

digress.

groundwater not, part, appear subterranean rivers. there such things, of course- in geologic settings dominated limestones... same sort of rocks in you'll find caves , sinkholes , whatnot. free-flowing rivers through solutioned limestone represent relatively small fraction of groundwater reserves on planet, , not longitudinally extensive in way mississippi , nile are. groundwater exists within interstices of subsurface sediments, or within joints , fractures in whatever rock. indeed flow, couldn't, instance, hop aboard zodiac boat , go adventure.

often, i've encountered misapprehension respect water-wells. many people assume when drill well, you're "tapping" 1 of fabled underground rivers. confused notion leads unfortunate misunderstandings groundwater resources- 1 persistent 1 course of underground streams can located via dowsing or "water-witching," built upon incorrect assumption begin with.

i've excluded athropogenic underground rivers, of course. since we've been engineering our planet- starting romans- we've redirected , channelized flow of lot of surface water, , built on these systems. many miles of subterranean river exist in los angeles , atlanta , london , pretty other urban center nowadays. there must be, collectively, thousands of linear miles of engineered underground rivers, though call them "aqueducts" , "sewers".

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