2,436 articles
Indus Himalayan Foothills
Indus Himalayan Foothills, FEOW freshwater ecoregion 705, basins along the southern Himalayan foothills in the Indus basin across India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan; Palearctic montane freshwaters, Jhelum River, no endemic fishes, Hokarsar and Haigam wetlands.
Indus River
The Indus River is a major South Asian river rising in Tibet, known for hosting the Indus Valley civilization and sustaining the world's largest contiguous irrigation network.
Indus River Delta
The Indus River Delta is the mangrove-fringed, tide-dominated delta where the 2,900 km Indus River meets the Arabian Sea in Sindh, Pakistan; once fed by ~400 Mt of sediment yearly, it is now sediment-starved, eroding, and salinizing after upstream dams and barrages.
Inland water
Inland water: lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, wetlands, and cave waters wholly within a state's territory, holding under 3% of Earth's water yet nearly 10% of known species, with freshwater populations down 85% since 1970.
Inle Lake
Inle Lake (Inlay Lake), Southern Shan State, Myanmar: shallow 884 m mountain lake, country's second-largest, home of Intha floating gardens (Yechan), Lawpita hydropower source, Ramsar and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve site facing siltation and shrinking area.
Inner Niger Delta
The Inner Niger Delta (Delta intérieur du Niger) is a vast inland floodplain in central Mali, defined by the spreading Niger and Bani rivers between Djenné and Tombouctou.
Innocent passage
Innocent passage: the law-of-the-sea right of foreign ships to traverse a coastal state's territorial sea non-prejudicially, codified in the 1958 and 1982 conventions; warship passage remains contested.
Inside Passage
The Inside Passage is a protected ~950-mile (1,530 km) coastal waterway through British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, from Puget Sound to Skagway, sheltered by over 1,500 islands; a historic Indigenous, steamship, ferry, and cruise route.
Integrated water resources management
Integrated water resources management (IWRM), defined by the Global Water Partnership in 2000, coordinates water and land management across sectors, managing water at the river basin scale sustainably and equitably.
Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is a Pacific-wide pattern of decadal sea surface temperature variability resembling El Niño, first described by Power and colleagues in 1999.
Interdunal wetland
Interdunal wetland, also called dune slack, is a wetland in depressions between dunes or beach ridges with a fluctuating water table; Great Lakes, European, Californian, and desert variants are imperiled, hydrologically sensitive habitats.
International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean
IBCSO is GEBCO's authoritative digital bathymetric model of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. Version 1 (2013) covered south of 60°S; Version 2 (2022) extends to 50°S at 500 m resolution, AWI-led under Seabed 2030.
International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, CICTA) is the tuna RFMO for the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas, founded 1966, Madrid-based, 56 members, managing tunas, swordfish, billfish, and sharks.
International Joint Commission
The International Joint Commission (Commission mixte internationale) is a binational Canada–United States organization created by the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty to prevent and resolve disputes over shared waters.
Inútil Bay
Inútil Bay (Bahía Inútil, Useless Bay), named 1827, is a 4776 km² semi-enclosed bay on northwest Tierra del Fuego, Chile, linked to the Strait of Magellan and Almirantazgo Sound, noted for poor anchorage and rich marine biodiversity.
Ionian Basin
The Ionian Basin is the deep abyssal basin underlying the Ionian Sea between southern Italy, Libya, and western Greece, the deepest regional sea of the Mediterranean.
Ionian Drainages
Ionian Drainages (FEOW ecoregion 421): temperate coastal river ecoregion along western Greece, from the Thyamis and Corfu to the Peloponnese; highest fish endemism in Europe (59%), with endemic genera Tropidophoxinellus and Economidichthys.
Ionian Sea (Ιόνιο Πέλαγος)
The Ionian Sea (Ιόνιο Πέλαγος), between Italy and western Greece, is the Mediterranean's deepest sub-basin (5,121 m), key to basin ventilation, rated 'poor' in 2022 environmental status, with a planned 14,000 km2 Greek marine park.
Iriri
Iriri (Rio Iriri) is a 1,177 km river in Pará, Brazil, draining a 122,654 km² Amazonian basin; monitored by the Pedra do Ó gauge and satellite altimetry, with ENSO-linked rainfall and NDVI studies.
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates Ireland from Great Britain, linking to the Atlantic via St. George's Channel and the North Channel. Key facts: glacial Irish Sea Ice Stream history, 1–2 m/s peak spring tidal currents, mud and gravel seabed, and major offshore wind development.
Irminger Basin
The Irminger Basin, often called the Irminger Sea, is a deep ocean basin of the subpolar North Atlantic between East Greenland and Iceland, south of the Denmark Strait.
Irminger Sea
Irminger Sea: marginal sea of the North Atlantic between Greenland and Iceland, south of Denmark Strait. Site of deep convection, the Irminger Gyre, and a center of subpolar AMOC variability.
Ironbottom Sound
Ironbottom Sound (formerly Savo Sound) is the water between Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands, named for the 100-plus warships sunk in the 1942–43 Guadalcanal night naval battles.
Irrawaddy Delta
Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) Delta, Myanmar's tide-dominated delta at the Andaman Sea, ~35,000 km² rice bowl; eroding west, accreting east coast; struck by Cyclone Nargis 2008.
Irrawaddy River (ဧရာဝတီမြစ်)
Irrawaddy River (Ayeyarwady, ဧရာဝတီမြစ်), Myanmar's principal river, about 1,300 miles long from the Mali–N'mai confluence to nine delta mouths; monsoon-fed, lightly dammed, vital for rice irrigation, navigation, and critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins.
Irtysh (river, Russia)
Irtysh (Иртыш, Kazakh Ertis): major Siberian river, largest Ob tributary, 4,248 km from the Altai through Kazakhstan to the Ob at Khanty-Mansiysk; basin 1,643,000 km², discharge 99.8 km³/yr.
Ishim
The Ishim, also called Esil (Есіл), is a river about 2,450 km long in Kazakhstan and Russia, and a left tributary of the Irtysh that flows through Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.
Issyk-Kul
Issyk-Kul (Ысык-Көл, "warm lake") is a deep, endorheic saline lake at 1,606 m in Kyrgyzstan's Tian Shan: 6,236 km², 668 m deep, never freezing, Silk Road heritage, declining water level.
Italian Riviera
Italian Riviera (Riviera ligure), the Ligurian coast from Nice to La Spezia, divided into Riviera di Ponente and di Levante; mild climate, Genoa, Cinque Terre, Portofino, Sanremo, and UNESCO sites.
Ixtoc I oil spill
Ixtoc I (IXTOC-I) was a Pemex exploratory well that blew out in the Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico, on June 3, 1979, releasing roughly 3.5 million barrels of crude until March 1980, then the world's largest oil spill.