India’s Ganges River runs nearly 2,500km and its catchment is home to nearly 650 million people. It is also home to a rich collection of wildlife, including dolphins, turtles, otters and fish. Understood by Hindus to be the embodiment of the goddess Ganga, the river holds deep spiritual significance to over one billion people: the faithful believe that “bathing in the waters can absolve people of their sins”.
But the Ganges, along with other vital regional waterways such as Bangladesh’s Turag River, are facing a fight to stave off myriad threats. And South Asia is running out of time to find solutions to make rivers healthy.
India and Bangladesh are part of the transnational Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basin and are defined by their relationship with these rivers. They flow from glaciers in the Himalayas, across the plains and out through rich mangrove forests of the Sundarbans.
