River are the one of the most important geographical features in the world. They range in size from little more than swollen streams to mighty waterways that flow for thousands of kilometers.
The greatest rivers in the world are the
Amazon, the
Mississippi and the
Nile. They all drain huge areas of land. The basin of the Amazon, for example, stretches over an area larger than all of Western Europe.
Some rivers serve as transport links that allow ocean-going ships to sail far inland. In tropical jungles they are often the only way to travel. Rivers with DAMS supply us with electric power. Water from rivers is also used to irrigate farmland in desert lands and other dry parts of the world.
Rivers represent the World's Water Resources, as they carry virtually all the water that is available for human management and use.
"Calm as it is, a river should look like this."
The four great civilizations of early human history developed in close dependence on rives and the fertile, easily worked soils of their floodplains: the Sumerians on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, the Harrapans on the Indus in Pakistan, the Chinese on the Huang he("Yellow river") and the Chang Jiang in Central China, and the Egyptians on the Nile river in Egypt. Rivers and their valleys have continued to play important roles in the course of history.
In addition to providing direct sources of water for domestic, agricultural and industrial uses, rivers produce energy directly through hydropower generation; they also provide the cooling water for many fossil and nuclear-fueled power plants. They serve as transportation routes, as carriers and natural "treatment plants" for human wastes, and as habitats for fish and wildlife.
"The other face of CDO river."
