Basin-wide Trapping of Suspended Sediment Flux for the World Water Development Report II

A total of 236 regulated basins with 633 large reservoirs (> 0.5 km3 maximum storage capacity), which collectively represent about 70% of registered impoundment storage volume was used to estimate basinwide relative loss of suspended sediment destined for the world's oceans. For the purposes of display, the basins include both discharging and non-discharging portions of the land mass.

A total of approximately 25-30% of pre-disturbance sediment flux is sequestered by modern impoundments, most built since 1950 (Vorosmarty et al. 2003, Syvitski et al. 2005). Downloadable file: tebas.asc = basin-wide relatve loss of suspended sediment (in %) destined for the world's oceans. Primary source: Vorosmarty et al. (2003).