This is a list of the largest river basins without fragmentation by

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

s in their catchments, ordered by average annual discharge. To qualify for inclusion, a river must not only have no dams on its “main” stem, but also no dams on any tributary. For this reason, major world rivers such as the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

Lena Lena or LENA may refer to: Places * Léna Department, a department of Houet Province in Burkina Faso * Lena, Manitoba, an unincorporated community located in Killarney-Turtle Mountain municipality in Manitoba, Canada * Lena, Norway, a village in ...

, Irrawaddy,

Amur The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...

, and

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal e ...

are disqualified because of dams on tributary streams. Many of the rivers in this list have uncertain discharges. With the exception of those in Russia, streamgauges have seldom (if ever) been placed on the majority of the largest unfragmented river systems, due to the remoteness and/or ruggedness of the terrain in which they are located. Apart from the Fly which is clearly the largest, all ranks listed here are not perfectly certain, and there also exist a number of rivers in

Sundaland Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...

that might qualify with reliable discharge data, such as the Kapuas.

References

* Nilsson, Christer; Reidy, Catherine A.; Dynesius, Mats and Revenga Carmen; “Fragmentation and Flow Regulation of the World's Large River Systems”; in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

''; 15 April 2005: Vol. 308 no. 5720 pp. 405–408; DOI: 10.1126/science.1107887 * Nuttall, Mark (editor); ''Encyclopedia of the Arctic'' {{reflist Lists of rivers

Rivers A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

See also

References