The World’s Most Powerful Rivers

Key Takeaways

• The most powerful rivers—as measured by their average discharge (water flow rate)—helps us understand the amount of water flowing through a river system.
• This is useful for calculating navigation & hydroelectric potential, flood hazard risks, and water supply.
• The Amazon’s discharge is so high that it is enough to fill more than 83 olympic-sized pools each second.
• It is 18% of the total discharge of all rivers in the world.