The Indian Rivers Inter-link project is similar in scope and technical challenges as other major global river inter-link projects, such as:
#Rhine–Main–Danube Canal – completed in 1992, and also called the Europa Canal, it inter-links the Main river to the Danube river, thus connecting North Sea and Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea. It provides a navigable artery between the Rhine delta at Rotterdam in the Netherlands to the Danube Delta in eastern Romania. It is 171 km long, has the summit altitude (between the Hilpoltstein and Bachhausen locks) is 406 m above sea level, the highest point on Earth reachable by ships from the sea. In 2010, the inter-link provided navigation for 5.2 million tonnes of goods, mostly food, agriculture, ores and fertilizers, reducing the need for 250,000 truck trips per year. The canal is also a source for irrigation, industrial water and power generation plants.
#Illinois Waterway system consists of 541 kilometres of interlink that connects a system of rivers, lakes, and canals to provide a shipping connection from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River. It provides a navigation route; primary cargoes are coal to powerplants, chemicals and petroleum upstream, and agriculture produce downstream primarily for export. The Illinois waterway is the principal source of industrial and municipal services water needs along its way; it serves the petroleum refining, pulp and paper processing, metal works, fermentation and distillation, and agricultural products industries.
#Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway is a 377 kilometre man-made waterway that interlinks the Tennessee River to the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River in the United States.  The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links major coal producing regions to coal consuming regions, and serves as commercial navigation for coal and timber products. Industries that utilize these natural resources have found the Waterway to be their most cost-efficient mode of transportation. The water from the Tenn-Tom Waterway is a major source of industrial water supply, public drinking water supply, and irrigation along its way.
#Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, completed in 1949, interlinks 8 rivers, and is located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately 1700 kilometres from Florida to Texas. It is the third busiest waterway in the United States, handling 70 million tonnes of cargo per year, and a major low cost, ecologically friendly and low carbon footprint way to import, export and transport raw materials and products for industrial, chemical and petrochemical industries in the United States. It has also become a significant source for fishing industry as well as for harvesting and shipping shellfish along the coast line of the United States.
#The Central Yunnan Water Diversion Project is a water diversion project from the Jinsha River with 63 tunnels of total length 600 km to the Dianchi Lake in Yunnan province of China. Once this project is completed, it would be world's longest tunnel relegating Delaware Aqueduct tunnel of 137 km to second place.
#Murray–Darling basin, this region in southern Australia with two rivers and associated watercourses was engineered for agriculture and a number of flows were altered over decades with the earliest alterations beginning in 1890. Among the results were changes in seasonal flows causing numerous ecological problems including cyanobacteria blooms killing off fishes, high salinity, acidification, and decline in numerous species of plants and animals. A study of attempts to repair the ecology that began in 2012 were reported as failing in 2017.
Other completed rivers inter-linking projects include the Marne-Rhine Canal in France, the All-American Canal and California State Water Project in the United States, South–North Water Transfer Project in China, etc.