Tuesday, July 13, 2021

The River Basins of Central Europe

Central European River Basins is an interactive map which visualizes the major river systems of Central Europe using different colors. The map reveals which major watersheds all the streams, brooks and rivers of Central Europe flow into.

OpenStreetMap (OSM) data was used to create this interactive River Basin Map. On OSM all waterways are given a unique ID number. If two waterways are connected to each other, then they have a common node that can be clearly identified from their ID number. In this way Martin Kompf. the map's creator, was able to identify all the waterways on OSM associated with each major river system in Central Europe. 

If you are interested in exploring interactive visualizations of watersheds in other locations around the world then you might enjoy these maps:

The Watersheds Map allows you to visualize watershed regions throughout the USA. As you mouse-over the map it automatically updates to show upstream areas in red and downstream areas in blue. The map allows you to visualize over 100,000 watershed regions in the United States.

The Watershed Explorer interactive map allows you to click anywhere in the world to view all of its upstream areas and the downstream flow.When you click on this map a high-resolution digital elevation model is used to calculate the flow direction that water would take at every point on the surrounding land. The map then follows "these directions to calculate the region that contributes to a single outlet".

The USGS's Streamer map allows you to trace rivers or streams upstream to their source or downstream to their final destinations in the USA. The interactive map can create very dramatic visualizations of river watersheds, particularly when you trace a river upstream to show all of its tributaries.

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