South Asia: Human Environment Interaction

The Ganges River  1,500 miles long – home to more than 350 million people  Important to the livelihood of Indians.  Provides water for drinking, farming and transportation.  AKA: Gangamai, or “Mother Ganges”  The Ganges River is sacred to the Hindu population.  The Hindus worship the river as a goddess and they believe its waters have healing powers.

A Sacred River  Many temples and sacred sites line the banks of the Ganges.  Pilgrims come from all over the world to drink and bathe in its waters as well as scatter ashes of deceased family members.  At Varanasi thousands of people gather everyday.  As the sun rises they enter the water for prayer and purification.

A Polluted River  The Ganges is in trouble.  It is one of the MOST polluted rivers in the world.  Raw sewage  Industrial waste  Dead animals  Human corpses/remains  All efforts to clean up the river have been slow and very little progress has been made.

The Feni River  Bangladesh  The Feni River floods during the wet season.  This causes major problems for villages and farmers in the area.  In the 1980s, engineers in Bangladesh proposed building an earthen dam for the Feni.  VERY expensive undertaking.

The Feni River Dam

 Bangladesh has no money… but they do have abundant human resources!  Plenty of unskilled workers for construction  They built the dam up to a height of 30 ft.  Bangladesh now has the largest estuary – an arm of the sea at the lower end of a river.

Feni Dam Test  The first test of the Feni River dam came 3 months after its completion.  A cyclone roared through the Bay of Bengal – but the dam held!  Land and villages behind the dam were spared.