Hydrography
The Arkansas has three distinct sections in its long path through central North America. At its headwaters, the Arkansas runs as a steep mountain river through the Rockies in its narrow valley, dropping 4,600 feet (1.4 km) in 120 miles (193 km). This section (including The Numbers near Granite, Colorado, Brown's Canyon, and the Royal Gorge) supports extensive whitewater rafting in the spring and summer.
At Cañon City, Colorado, the Arkansas River valley widens and flattens markedly. Just west of Pueblo, Colorado, the river enters the Great Plains. Through the rest of Colorado, Kansas, and most of Oklahoma, it is a typical Great Plains riverway, with wide, shallow banks subject to seasonal flooding. Tributaries include the Canadian River and the Cimarron River (both flowing from northeastern New Mexico) and the Salt Fork Arkansas River.
The river is navigable by barges and large river craft to Catoosa, Oklahoma because of a series of locks and dams that have been constructed since the early 20th century, the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. Above Catoosa, the Arkansas River is navigable only by small craft such as rafts or canoes.
Through western Arkansas, the river valley passes through high, isolated, flat-topped mesas, buttes, or monadnocks, such as Mount Nebo and Petit Jean Mountain, and Mount Magazine, the highest point in the state. The river valley widens and becomes more shallow just west of Little Rock, Arkansas. It continues eastward across the plains and forests of eastern Arkansas until it flows into the Mississippi River.
Water flow in the Arkansas River (as measured in central Kansas) has dropped from approximately 248 cubic feet per second (7 m³/s) average from 1944-1963 to 53 cubic feet per second (1.5 m³/s) average from 1984–2003, largely because of the pumping of groundwater for irrigation in eastern Colorado and western Kansas.
Important cities along the Arkansas River include Pueblo, Colorado, Wichita, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fort Smith and Little Rock, Arkansas.
The I-40 Bridge Disaster of May 2002 took place on I-40's crossing of Kerr Reservoir on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma.
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