Global hydrobelts: A new method to define the world’s river basins

(i) mask or minimize the great disparity of water resources within continents and large countries (e.g. USA, Russia, Brazil, China, Australia), (ii) do not support integrated analysis of waterrelated issues at the river basin level, which is generally considered to be the optimum scale, and, (iii) are ill-suited for research into the response of river basins to current Global Change (including climate change and other human-induced environmental changes).