[1][2] It is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per second (symbol: hm3/s or hm3⋅s−1): 1 Sv is equal to 1 hm3/s.

[3] In the 1950s and early 1960s both Soviet and North American scientists contemplated the damming of the Bering Strait, thus enabling temperate Atlantic water to heat up the cold Arctic Sea and, the theory went, making Siberia and northern Canada more habitable.

As part of the North American team, Canadian oceanographer Maxwell Dunbar found it "very cumbersome" to repeatedly reference millions of cubic meters per second.

He casually suggested that as a new unit of water flow, "the inflow through Bering Strait is one sverdrup".

[5] The entire global input of fresh water from rivers to the ocean is approximately 1.2 Sv.