Rivers
Major rivers and their basins, flows and pressures.
The longest river in Africa and the water source on which Egypt depends almost entirely. It is the defining case of transboundary water dependence: Egypt receives essentially all its water…
The principal river of southern England and the source of much of London’s water supply. Its recovery from being declared biologically dead in the 1950s is one of the best-documented river…
The river of the American south west, and the clearest example anywhere of a river allocated beyond its actual flow. In most years it no longer reaches the sea.
By far the largest river in the world by discharge, delivering roughly a fifth of all river water reaching the oceans.
Supports one of the densest populations of any river basin on Earth, and carries a correspondingly severe pollution load alongside profound religious significance.
- Length
- approximately 2,525 km
- Basin population
- over 400 million
- Basin area
- approximately 1.09 million km²
The longest river in Asia and the site of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest power station in the world by installed capacity.
- Length
- approximately 6,300 km
- Basin area
- approximately 1.8 million km²
- Mean discharge
- approximately 30,000 m³/s
Supports the largest contiguous irrigation system in the world, and is governed by the Indus Waters Treaty — the most durable transboundary water agreement in existence, having survived several wars between its signatories.
- Length
- approximately 3,180 km
- Basin area
- approximately 1.12 million km²
- Treaty
- Indus Waters Treaty, 1960
- Glacier and snowmelt contribution
- a large share of dry-season flow
Australia’s principal river system and the subject of the most ambitious water reallocation programme attempted anywhere — the Basin Plan, which buys back water entitlements to restore environmental flows.
- Length
- approximately 3,700 km (combined)
- Basin area
- approximately 1.06 million km²
- Share of Australian irrigated agriculture
- around 40%
The most important navigable river in Europe and the site of the 1986 Sandoz chemical spill, the disaster that triggered modern European transboundary water cooperation.
- Length
- approximately 1,230 km
- Basin area
- approximately 185,000 km²
- Riparian countries
- 9
Supports one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries. Upstream dam construction has altered its flood pulse, the seasonal rhythm on which that fishery and the Tonlé Sap lake system depend.
- Length
- approximately 4,900 km
- Basin area
- approximately 795,000 km²
- People dependent on the basin
- over 60 million
The most international river basin in the world, shared by nineteen countries, and the subject of the longest-running basin-scale cooperation programme in Europe.
- Length
- approximately 2,850 km
- Basin area
- approximately 801,000 km²
- Countries in basin
- 19
The longest river in Great Britain, rising in the Cambrian Mountains and flowing to the Bristol Channel through one of the largest tidal ranges in the world.
- Length
- 354 km
- Catchment area
- approximately 11,400 km²
- Tidal range in estuary
- up to 15 m — the second largest in the world