Gouët
Encyclopedia
The Gouët is a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 river, located in the department of Côtes-d'Armor
Côtes-d'Armor
Côtes-d'Armor is a department in the north of Brittany, in northwestern France.-History:Côtes-du-Nord was one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Brittany. Its name was changed in 1990 to...

, in the region of Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

, which drains into the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

.

Geography

The rivers source is found at the top of Kerchouan, a shale geological feature located in the commune of La Harmoye
La Harmoye
La Harmoye is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of La Harmoye are called harmoyens.-External links:*...

. Il prend sa source à la cime de Kerchouan, un relief schisteux situé sur la commune de La Harmoye
La Harmoye
La Harmoye is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of La Harmoye are called harmoyens.-External links:*...

. Much of the water is from rainfall, however, it is also influenced by a dam in La Méaugon
La Méaugon
La Méaugon is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of La Méaugon are called méaugonnais.-External links:*...

, which collects potable water for the nearby city of Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.-History:Saint-Brieuc is named after a Welsh monk Brioc, who evangelized the region in the 6th century and established an oratory there...

. This dam siphons off 86% of the surface of the basin.

The Gouët is an extremely polluted river. Its banks are the site of intensive agriculture, and in addition it receives runoff from multiple nearby oil refineries
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

. Finally, the Gouët is polluted by the waste products from nearby food processing factories.

The river is 28.96 miles (44.6 kilometers) long and it empties into the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

 at Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.-History:Saint-Brieuc is named after a Welsh monk Brioc, who evangelized the region in the 6th century and established an oratory there...

, at the port of Légué, thus separating the cities of Saint-Brieuc and Plérin
Plérin
Plérin is a coastal commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Plérin are called plérinais.-External links:* *...

. The width varies between 10 and 23 feet (3 and 7m). The average discharge measured between 1990 and 1997 was 2.042 m3/s, with measured discharges of 12 m3/s during strong winter floods.

The drainage basin has an area of 240 km² (92.7 sq mi) and the underlying rock is primarily granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

.
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