Nothing is more fundamental to life than water – so see the world’s watersheds like never before with these colorful and absolutely stunning maps.

Source: www.visualcapitalist.com

I love the cartographic design of these three maps that shows the importance of river basins. In this one in particular, highlights the Danube and Volga river basins as the most extensive river basins in their regions. For countries in the Danube basin without a coastline, these fluvial connections are critical. The Volga river basin is enormous, but the fact that it flows into the Caspian Sea limits the natural advantage of this river system (this shows exactly why the Volga-Don Canal was such a massive project during the Soviet era).

Often we focus on political boundaries to define regions, but watersheds are natural ecological regions that shape transportation and trade connections.    

 

Scoop.it Tags: water, mapping, physical, fluvial, regions.

WordPress TAGS: water, mapping, physical, fluvial, regions.