Inix Floodplains
The road along the Inix was kept in good repair close to Patino, but quickly devolved into a rutted and sinkholed dirt path unsuitable for any power-wagon. Thanie's foot hit a rock; with a curse, she kicked it off the levee and into the Inix, where it made a dull brown *splash*.
"So you're the reason they have to re-dredge the reservoir every decade." Magistrate Haideri kept walking at a brisk pace. "Perhaps keep an eye on your path and we'll find this water culprit sooner rather than later."
"Yes, Magistrate." Thanie sighed. There was precious little of interest in eyesight from the leveetop path, with only endless rows of corn to the right and the sedated Inix to her left, the roadway stretching off to the horizon in a deadly dull straight line. "How are we so sure the divergence is on this part of the river, again?"
"The flow reading at the 24th mile has been consistently slightly slower than expected, given the reading at the 27th." Haideri pointed out a small mechanism along the levee, mostly submerged in the water, and took out a small journal. "Go down there and take a reading."
Thanie clambered down the levee's side, jamming her walking-stick into the dirt to keep herself from falling into the water. The flow monitor mechanism was a relatively simple device, powered by the water's flow; the speed of the waterwheel inside the device caused a tick-tick sound from a rotating cam, measuring flow speed. The device itself was attached to a float and roped to a standing meter, indicating the river's height. The apprentice counted the ticks.
"Fifteen klicks in a minute, the river's at nine and a half yards." Thanie scrambled up the levee face, her shoes digging into the dirt and throwing clumps into the river. "Shall I calculate that out?"
"No need. Cup your ears and look over there." The magistrate held his quill in a direction. Thanie closed her eyes and tried to tune out the slow flow of the river itself.
"...splashing. I hear water splashing down from a pipe?"
"And there's our scofflaw." Haideri was already walking off at his typical speed. "At least the power engineers at Patino will be able to patch this one up fairly quickly."
Geography
The Inix Floodplain is a vast semi-arid landscape surrounding the Inix River, just upstream of the flow's entrance into the waterworks of Patino, the Machine City. The plains themselves are fairly dry; the Inix river is fed through extensive snowmelt from its tributaries, themselves fed from their watersheds in the Taliq foothills, leading the river itself to be the center of both natural and artificial activity along the plains.
The Inix is not a 'stable' river, by the standards of The Academy of Etoile; the river has changed course six times over the hundred year history of the Principality of Etoile. Each change in the river's flow carved new channels in the plains, and from a bird's eye view, the otherwise unbroken landscape of farming tracts would be criss-crossed with old divots and levees; each failed attempts to control the river's flow. The Inix itself has a highly variable flow rate, dependent on the snowfall in the hills and the local temperature there; heat waves in the Taliq will cause floods downstream.
Most of the alluvial plains around the Inix are actively farmed, though the agricultural activity is limited by law; Patino itself requires a certain minimum amount of water to flow, and the farms along the Inix will see their water flows cut during a dry year, if the upper Inix reservoir is insufficiently full.
Ecosystem
The plains themselves were typical of the northern interior of Western Saibh, consisting of low forest and thick, drought-tolerant scrubland, with the area around the Inix itself supporting a full riverine ecosystem of cypress and willow trees, with trout and pike swimming through their roots. Agricultural practice has changed the ecosystem to that more typical of farm-wilderness borders, with wild perkites crossing between the remnants of scrubland and the waves of corn, and the Inix itself largely cleared of trees.
Localized Phenomena
The diversion of the Inix is the most notable natural event/disaster that occurs on the floodplains. During any flood year, the Inix always threatens to burst its banks; it doing so creates a new channel and flow pattern for the Inix, typically destroying whatever is in the new river's path as well as drying the prior flow channels. While this is a natural phenomenon that has occurred since time immemorial, speculation from the Academy suggests that the most recent re-routing of the Inix across the floodplains is largely due to the phenomenon of subsidence; literally the sinking of the ground due to the drilling of additional wells (as farmers use well-water when Patino reserves the Inix for its own use).
Natural Resources
The Inix fishery has never been particularly productive in history, useful now only for sport-fishing. Instead, the principal resource from the floodplains is an abundance of fresh water, corn, and sorghum from the farms, not to mention the flow of water itself powering all of the manufactories of Patino.
History
Prior to the establishment of Patino circa 631, the floodplains were a rich source of agriculture for the local petty kingdoms, with the cold snowmelt being diverted to water vast tracts of corn and sorghum. Farming in the floodplains was risky, however; in particularly rainy years the river could flood, not only destroying all of the crops in the area, but also breaching the riverbanks, carving a new path for the Inix across the plains. This was a headache for the petty lords that found their farms under roaring torrents of water, and meant that conflict over various damming and diversion schemes was inevitable - the lord that lost their farm would be highly desirious of the new farmlands opened up in the former river channel.
The rise of the Principality and the establishment of Patino changed the dynamics of the region. The new manufactories of Patino demanded a certain amount of water flow over the falls at the end of the river to ensure a consistent Power supply for the auto-weavers and reciprocating flatrods. This meant not only impounding water just upstream of the falls themselves (the Inix upper reservoir), but denying water to the farms that were traditional consumers of the local water supply. While agriculture continues in the area, the farms augment their water supply with wells, and many formerly productive farms have been fallowed, their irrigation canals bypassed and dry.
Type
Plain
Location under
Owning Organization
Related Ethnicities
Related Traditions
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