The plate
Presentation renders; photographs follow with the first printing.
Downstream Dependence
The Nile — Egypt lives downstream of everything it drinks
No payment now. A reservation holds your place in the first printing. Pricing is published on this page at opening — the list simply hears first. Once the press opens, plates print to order and dispatch in 2–3 working days.
The pattern
Almost every drop Egypt drinks rises outside Egypt — in the Ethiopian highlands and the lake country upstream. For most of history distance protected the delta; then Ethiopia built Africa’s largest dam on the Blue Nile, and the oldest dependency on the map became a live negotiation. The plate follows the river the whole way down so the exposure reads at a glance: one green ribbon, two thousand miles of upstream. And yet the leverage runs to whoever holds the dams, treaties and armies — not automatically uphill.
This pattern also governs
- The Indus — Pakistan’s water crosses India first — a treaty held it together for sixty years
- The Mekong — five countries downstream of China’s dam cascade
- The Euphrates — Turkey’s dams set the flow for Syria and Iraq
- The Colorado — the American version — Mexico receives what treaty and drought leave
The living map
Every printed plate carries a small engraved code in the colophon corner. Scan it and the plate opens as a living map — the story, the interactive atlas, the daily challenge — at cartogram.earth/p/downstream-dependence. Prefer a clean margin? Reserve with the no-mark option and the code ships on the colophon card instead. See the place in the atlas →
Shipping & returns
Printed to order at fine-art plants in the US and EU. Prints ship flat or in a rigid, double-walled tube; framed plates ship boxed with corner protection. Dispatch is 2–3 working days from the press opening. A plate damaged in transit is reprinted free, from a photo — no return postage, no argument. Exact shipping rates are published with launch pricing.
The edition
The Pattern Index is an open edition, printed to order. A cased Portfolio Edition of 250 — all fourteen plates, numbered, with a fifteenth key plate — follows the singles.
