{"id":20098186,"date":"2022-08-30T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=98186"},"modified":"2022-09-06T20:28:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T14:58:35","slug":"review-data-centred-world-bank-report-promotes-dialogue-on-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/review-data-centred-world-bank-report-promotes-dialogue-on-rivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Data-centred World Bank report promotes dialogue on rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Restless River: Yarlung Tsangpo-Siang-Brahmaputra-Jamuna<\/em> is a report you should save on your computer\u2019s hard disk if you are a policymaker, researcher or journalist who has anything to do with this river of many names. It has reams of data that will come in useful. But how I wish the first half of this 428-page report<\/a> published by the World Bank Group had not been written as a series of factsheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report has excellent photographs, almost all taken by Ganesh Pangare, one of the editors. The list of authors reads like a Who\u2019s Who of experts. The editors \u2013 Pangare, Bushra Nishat, Xiawei Liao and Halla Maher Qaddumi \u2013 are well-known experts themselves. The second half is eminently readable. But the first half, up to page 238, can at best be used as reference material, for when you want to do some factchecking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are facts galore, such as the most recent population estimate in the transboundary river basin \u2013 130 million people. There are details on the recent discovery by Chinese scientists of the Angsi glacier<\/a> as the one where the Yarlung Tsangpo originates. This identification is important in an era of climate change: Chinese scientists studying a major tributary glacier, Chemayungdung, reported in 2011 that its area had decreased by 5.02% between 1974 and 2010 and its snout had retreated at the rate of 21 metres per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is information on hydro-morphology, biodiversity, agriculture, hydropower, pollution. On the Yarlung Tsangpo being the world\u2019s highest navigable river and then falling through the world\u2019s deepest gorge to turn into the Siang as it enters India. Many more superlatives are mentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/div>
The critically endangered gharial, a fish-eating crocodilian, was once found in freshwater river systems from Pakistan to Myanmar. Today it is found only in a few locations in India and Nepal. (Image: Ganesh Pangare)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

You learn that the average winter temperature across the basin has risen by half a degree, and the extent to which glaciers in Tibet are retreating due to climate change. All are important pieces of information. But they are presented in a manner unlikely to attract anyone except those already working on the basin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an important recommendation: \u201cA no regret strategy for basin planners would be to prepare for reduced water availability in the upstream and increased floods in the downstream.\u201d But it is buried within such a mass of data that it may be missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a critique of embankment-based flood management practices in India and Bangladesh, but once again it comes with so many numbers that a quick read may mean a reader misses the important recommendation: \u201cThere is a need to re-examine the flood management plans and strategies in the changing times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>
Recommended<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n\n\n\n

Around 200 fish species reported in the mid-20th century from the Brahmaputra valley have now disappeared, especially between Saikhowaghat and Dhansirimukh in Assam, the report says. It lists the steps needed to control pollution and overfishing. It talks of the way dams stop fish migration routes. But again, the problem is with the way all this is presented \u2013 hemmed in with so much data that the conclusions may be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only when you get to the culture, history, society and livelihoods of the people living in the basin that the need for transboundary cooperation; to integrate indigenous knowledge into policymaking; to have people living in the basin involved in policymaking, that the report becomes interesting to the lay reader. There are important recommendations on transboundary cooperation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n