Carthago Consultancy -Bangladesh in Motion

Bangladesh rivers of mud

Bangladesh is often characterised as a country with a million rivers. And when we think about rivers we think about water. Billions of cubic meters of water finding its way through the country, each year again and again.

But, when thinking about rivers in Bangladesh, you should be thinking about mud. Because each year these rivers in Bangladesh carry billions of tons of mud. The experts call this sediments. And Bangladesh should be aptly named the country of rivers of mud.

And it is this mud that creates the dynamics in these rivers. If the rivers are low, the mud slowly settles and slowly begins to block the flow in the river. And when the rivers are high, and the currents are high, the river washes away the sediments, and finds new channels to flow through. And bringing again loads of sediments to block the channels again.

It is this process that gives the fertility to the lands. Each year the rivers bring in the fertile sediments. It is this process that creates new chars in the rivers. Mud banks high enough to be occupied by humans, to be cultivated and to be settled. And it is this process that washes away the same chars. It is this eternal struggle between water, mud and man.

Bangladeshi have adapted to this process. Bangladeshi have built bridges through these flows of mud. With the proud crown being the Padma bridge, of which the latest span was only recently installed.

This document shows some examples of the highly dynamic floodplains in Bangladesh. For selected locations it shows Landsat satellite images, combined into animated time-series. Good satellite images become available for 1980s onwards. So 30 years of images to show the changes in channels and river morphology. All maps animate by clicking the '>' button.

Teesta confluence

Bairabari Daial (Baggari)

Bohali Char

Bangabandhu Bridge

Dhaka urban extension (Uttara)

Ganges and Jamuna Confluence

Padma bridge

Char Rajapur and Natun Char No 1

Tasfia's home place

Char Goshai and Bara Malancha

Hatiya Island

Shyamnagar

About

The images in this document have been produced using Google Earth Engine and its archive of Landsat images. Many kudos go to Qiusheng Wu for providing the excellent tools for creating timelapses of Google Earth Engine data.