The river was first named the Yatala by the initial exploration party, but later renamed to honour Robert Torrens senior, chairman of the board of Colonisation Commissioners for South Australia from 1834 to 1841 (when he was sacked).

A Native Location was created on the north banks of the Torrens and indigenous labour was often used by the settlers for tasks such as hewing wood or delivering water.

[8] During the early years of settlement, the river acted as both the city's primary water source and main sewer, leading to outbreaks of typhoid.

It runs predominantly along faulted north-south ground structures, which were formed over 250 million years ago during the Paleozoic era then further dislocated during the Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary.

After the scarp it flows over sedimentary rocks of varying resistance to erosion, which has led to interspersed narrows and broad basins.

Over time the Torrens deposited sediment, choking its own outflow; becoming locked behind coastal sand dunes and forming the swampy areas of the Cowandilla Plains and The Reedbeds.

[2] The Torrens is fed by numerous seasonal creeks, which are dry for most of the year in their lower reaches, but prone to occasional flooding during the winter and spring.

[12] There is some risk of flooding from all of these eastern suburbs creeks, as shown by the Floodplain Study, which includes plans and maps drawn up by the City of Burnside and neighbouring councils.

[16][17] Second Creek arises in the Summertown area of the Adelaide Hills, north of First Creek, and flows through Greenhill, through Slape Gully, entering the more populated suburbs as it flows through the Michael Perry Reserve in Stonyfell and onwards through the eastern suburbs of Erindale, Marryatville, Kensington (open at Borthwick Park[18]) and Norwood,[19] much of it canalised underground[20] as far as St Peters.

[21] Third Creek arises near Norton Summit and flows through the suburbs of Magill, Tranmere, Trinity Gardens and Payneham, much of the way underground, before discharging into the Torrens at Felixstow.

It frequently flooded in winter and did not reach the sea, instead ending at coastal dunes where its waters created a vast but shallow freshwater wetlands.

At the present moment, its running water may be spanned with the hand and sounded with the forefingerSince settlement it has repeatedly flooded, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Norwood was inundated to The Parade, Adelaide to Pirie and Rundle Streets, and many areas west of the city were left in a shallow lake.

The river was named "The Yatala" by the party[35] but later renamed by Surveyor General Colonel William Light after Robert Torrens, chairman of the South Australian Colonisation Commission.

[35] The first Europeans to explore the Torrens Gorge to the headwaters and sources of the river were Dr George Imlay and John Hill in January 1838.

In 1934 the "Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works" recommended that an outlet for the river be created to accommodate flows of up to 370 m3/s (13,000 cu ft/s), covering a 1-in-60-year flood.

Based on recommendations in a 1925 report on flood mitigation, work began in the 1960s on the building of the Kangaroo Creek Reservoir, opened in 1969 with a capacity of 24.4 megalitres (860,000 cu ft).

[51] A development plan was approved in 1981 to purchase land along the length of the river, create a flood mitigating linear park and also to modify the Kangaroo Creek dam further.

The Rotunda is a largely Glasgow built 9-metre-high (30 ft) iron bandstand which was funded by Sir Thomas Elder, the park being named after him.

[57] In March 1962 Keith Altman, owner of riverside eatery "Jolley's Boathouse", took over the Popeyes and introduced recreational paddle boats to the river.

Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser officially launched three new fibreglass models named Popeyes I, II and III in 1982 as the wooden boats' replacements.

This led to a range of health issues until finally, in 1839, when a dysentery outbreak killed five children in one day, Governor Gawler forbade bathing, clothes washing and the disposal of animal carcases in the Torrens within 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) of town.

To prevent this the State Government in 1852 built a facility with steam powered pumps and water storage, from which the carters then filled their casks.

Government then created a Waterworks Department, which started construction of a weir 16 kilometres (10 mi) from the city and reservoir at Thorndon Park in 1859.

They were supplied with reticulated water from the Torrens and progressively upgraded with the last change a 1940 remodelling including an Olympic-size swimming pool and diving tower.

An earth bank dam fed by mile long tunnel from a weir on the river at Gumeracha, its elevation allows gravity supply of water to Adelaide's eastern suburbs.

[41] Exotic pest species such as the European carp, redfin perch and trout have greatly reduced native fish populations like the big headed gudgeon (Philypnodon grandiceps) but native waterfowl are common along the river with Pacific black ducks, Australian wood ducks, black swans, ibis, egrets and herons amongst the more than 100 species seen.

The river then continues the remaining eight kilometres to the sea at Henley Beach South, emptying into Gulf St Vincent via a constructed outlet.

Hope Valley, Millbrook and Kangaroo Creek Reservoirs, which provide water storage for Adelaide, capture the river's flow.

[86] Rubbish accumulation in the lower river is controlled with numerous collection racks, and sediments and other pollutants are filtered through constructed wetlands.