The is a
River in
Picardy , northern
France .
The river is 245 km long, from its source in the high ground of the former Forest of Arrouaise at
Fonsommes near
Saint-Quentin , to the Bay of the Somme, in the
English Channel . It lies in the
Geological Syncline which also forms The
Solent . This gives it a fairly constant and gentle gradient.
The name ''Somme'' comes from a
Celtic word meaning ''tranquility''.
The river is characterized by a very gentle gradient and a steady flow. The valley is more or less steep-sided but its bottom is flat with lies. Here, the flow of water had been sufficient to keep the fen from forming.
This satellite photograph shows the fenny valley crossing the chalk to the sea on the left. The sinuous length at the centre of the picture lies downstream from
Péronne .
One of the fens, the ''Marais de l'Île'' is a nature reserve in the town of St.Quentin. The traditional market gardens of
Amiens , the ''Hortillonages'' are on this sort of land but drained. Once exploited for peat cutting, the fen is now used for fishing and shooting.
The construction of the ''Canal de la Somme'' began in
1770 and reached completion in
1843 . It is 156 km long, beginning at St.Simon and opening into the Bay of the Somme. From St.Simon to Froissy (near Bray sur Somme, south of Albert), the canal is alongside the river. Thence to the sea, the river is partly river and partly navigation. From
Abbeville , it is diverted through the
Silt ed, former
Estuary , to
Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme , where the maritime canal, once called the canal du Duc d'Angoulême enters the English Channel.
The St.Quentin Canal, famous for the
1918 battle, links the Somme to northern France and
Belgium and southward to the
Oise . The Canal du Nord also links the Somme to the Oise, at Noyon, thence to Paris.
In 2001, the Somme valley was affected by particularly high floods, which were in large part, due to a rise in the
Water Table of the surrounding land.
Catchment area 5560 km&
2.
Catchment area 4835 km&
2.
1995 .
1996 .
1997 .
1998 .
1999 .
2000 .
2001 .
2002 .
2003 .
2004 .
2005 .
Catchment area 1294 km&
2.
- Delattre, Ch., Mériaux, E. and Waterlot, M. ''Guides Géologiques Régionaux: Région du Nord, Flandre Artois Boulonnais Picardie'' (1973)
