摘要
Cultures throughout the world are associating with the rivers.People depend upon the rivers and their tributaries for food,water,transport,and many other aspects of their daily lives.Unfortunately,human beings have not calculated the accurate lengths for the great rivers even today.The lengths of the rivers are very different in popular textbooks,magazines,atlases and encyclopedias,etc.To accurately determine the lengths of the principal rivers of the world,the combination of satellite image analysis and field investigations to the source regions is proposed in this paper.The lengths of the Nile,Amazon,Yangtze,Mississippi,Yellow,Ob,Yenisey,Amur,Congo and Mekong,with lengths over or close to 5000 km,were calculated using the proposed method.The results may represent the most reliable and accurate lengths of the principal rivers of the world that are currently achievable.
基金
supported by China High-Tech Research and Development Project(863 Project)
the Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences,the Special Funds of Director General of Institute of Remote Sensing Applications,Chinese Academy of Sciences,the Funds of the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Sciences of China
the Funds of the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying,Mapping and Remote Sensing of China and Earth&Space Awards of the Earth and Space Foundation.