Waterway

A river and a canal are both types of waterway.

A series of dams on the transboundary Mekong River has reduced water levels, damaging fisheries and causing other environmental problems for the people who depend on the waterway for their livelihoods and food.

Operators of a 400-meter cargo ship say their vessel lost power and ran aground sideways in the Suez Canal, blocking a crucial waterway that is responsible for up to 12 percent of the world’s total trade.

The Suez Canal Authority says about 50 ships a day pass through the 193-kilometer manmade waterway.

The backlog of ships trying to pass through the Suez Canal could take about four days to work through, following nearly a week in which the vital waterway was blocked by a massive container ship.

The Mekong is one of the world’s great rivers — a 5,000-kilometer waterway threading from China through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

This is the fourth piece in a five-part series on the Potomac River, the waterway in the eastern United States that flows through four U.S. States and metropolitan Washington DC into the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North America. In a canoe trip down the river VOA's Rosanne Skirble explores the natural riches of the Potomac and the struggle to protect the land and water resources of the river in the face of population growth, sprawling development and pollution.