Water of life - introduction to hydrological observations in the world's great river civilizations: Life on earth first appeared in water. Water is an important component of all living organisms, an important resource for human life, and the foundation of human civilization. Most of their origins are in large river basins.
Human beings have a long history of primitive hydrological observations and have gradually accumulated experience. Primitive hydrological observations have been made in the Nile River, Mesopotamia, Yellow River and Yangtze River Basins. Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, China, etc. It is the first country in the world to conduct water level observations. However, in China, there is a unique history of solidifying human observations of river water in the form of stone carvings and passing them on to later generations. Among them, the group of hydrological stone carvings in the Three Gorges region of the Yangtze River in China, represented by the Fuling Baiheliang Inscription, is particularly dazzling.