Waterway Coverage in EU Regions

The chart above shows the kilometers of waterways per square kilometer of land in EU regions.  Even though the states with the greatest waterway coverage are from the Western EU, the Northern EU as a region comes out on top.

Findings

• The difference between the region with the greatest waterway coverage, the Northern EU, and the region with the least, the Southern EU, is 0.02 kilometers.
• The Northern EU has 4.64 times the waterway coverage that the Southern EU does.
• Only the Northern EU has more than 0.02 kilometers of waterways for every square kilometer of land.

Caveats

• Waterway data is from 2016 except for Belgium (2008), Germany (2013), Luxembourg (2009), and Romania (2015).
• Area data is from 2007.
• Waterway and area data come from different sources.
• All figures are rounded to the nearest thousandth.
• Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden did not have any waterway data.
• The Northern EU consists of Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
• The Western EU consists of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
• The Eastern EU consists of Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
• The Southern EU consists of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta.

Details

Although the Western EU has more total waterways by far, its coverage is considerably smaller than the waterway coverage of the Northern EU.

The European Union as a whole has 0.014 kilometers of waterways for every square kilometer of land ranking it just under the Western EU and above the Eastern EU.

Sources

Eurostat.  2018.  "Data Explorer."  Accessed May 30, 2018.  http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-054762_QID_-228626FA_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;UNIT,L,Z,0;TRA_INFR,L,Z,1;WEIGHT,L,Z,2;INDICATORS,C,Z,3;&zSelection=DS-054762UNIT,KM;DS-054762WEIGHT,TOTAL;DS-054762TRA_INFR,TOTAL;DS-054762INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;&rankName1=TRA-INFR_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=WEIGHT_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName6=GEO_1_2_0_1&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23.

United Nations.  2007.  "United Nations Statistics Division - Environment Statistics."  Accessed January 23, 2018.  https://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/totalarea.htm.