To geography teachers about the practice and criteria for determining the sources of the largest rivers in the world and the Carpathian region

Abstract

The aim of this article is to substantiate the necessity of applying a hydrographic approach (determining the length by the most distant source) when establishing the parameters of river systems; to inform teachers about contemporary research on the sources of the world’s largest rivers (the Nile, the Amazon, and the Danube), as well as those of the Carpathian region of Ukraine.

Main content. The article reveals the current problem of determining the source and total length of rivers, when the historical name of the watercourse does not coincide with its most distant point in the basin. The study analyzes the terminological basis of the concept of “source”, which proves that the confluence of two rivers should not be regarded as the beginning of a natural watercourse, but merely as a point of a name change. Based on the analysis of international research and contemporary cartographic resources (OpenTopoMap, Google Earth), the structure of the upper reaches of the Nile and the Amazon, as well as the Danube is examined in details. Special attention is paid to the rivers of the Ukrainian Carpathians. The examples of the Tysa, Dniester and Bystrytsia basins show how the hydrographic length (taking into account the longest source) differs from the officially accepted data. The study formulates five key criteria (morphometric, geomorphological, hydrometric, areal and geological), by which the main source should be identified. The materials of the article are of practical importance to geography teachers, students and local history researchers in the study of the local hydrosystem.

Conclusions. The information on the sources of rivers and the criteria for their determination presented in the article has scientific and methodological value for the geography teacher. It goes beyond the “dry” statistics of textbooks and allows the study of hydrography to be transformed into a real scientific research.