Congratulations for yet another strawman. How many strawmen do you have, can I borrow one.
Dang. I asked for a scholarly research work and all I get is a newsreport, which makes a mention, in the passing, of ‘drying’ up of ‘tributaries’, and not of ‘dead rivers’. Back to square one. My expectations are running in the negatives now. Anyway.
First a little Geology 101. ‘
Tributary’ is a stream/river that discharges its water into the mainstream (in this case Padma) while the source lies somewhere else. Tributaries, are in fact the sources (secondary source for Padma) of a river. ‘
Distributary’, on the other hand, is a stream/river that originates from the mainstream and discharges water somewhere else, or sometimes, even come back to the mainstream. Distributaries are the ones that actually drain the mainstream.
For example, Mathabhanga is a right bank distributary of Padma, but Churni, which originates from Mathabhanga is a left bank tributary of Hoogly. In other words, Mathabhanga is draining Padma and contributing to Hoogly (It seems, that even Ms Nature has become a part of the Indian cabal, because earlier Mathabhanga was not connected to Churni, but now it is.)
A tributary dries up when its source dries up (duh!), which may lead to the drying up of the mainstream where it discharges its water. So if 15 ‘tributaries’ dry up, there is a possibility that Padma will dry up. But Farakka Barrage is on Ganges (Padma), and has no influence on the streams/rivers (tributaries) flowing into the Padma, after the Farakka barrage. (Tributaries flowing into Ganges before the Farakka barrage, of course are effected by the barrage). So how is Farakka connected to drying up of these 15 ‘tributaries’. Less water in Padma means that the distributaries will get less water, which may eventually dry up permanently if significant silting happens on their river beds. The news report only discusses the effect of Farakka barrage on Padma, but fails to provide any significant insight into how this effect on Padma is drying up its ‘tributaries’, i.e. the streams/rivers that are actually bringing in water into Padma.
My query therefore, remains unanswered. Why am I not surprised.
Now, to recapitulate, once again, your argument was (post #147) Farakka is drying up Padma and thereby creating land (you had a picture of a dry river bed, to go along with that argument, as means to emphasize your point.). Now, in post #177, you are implying that ‘tributaries’ of Padma are drying up, and creating land, not Padma itself. From, drying of Padma = land, to sandbars on Padma = land, to drying up of ‘tributaries’ of Padma = land. Shifting goalpost as we go along. That happens when one jumps into the mud thinking it’s a chocolate mash.
You can call me anything you feel like, I will not complain.
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At the start of your post, I thought I heard the promise of a dinner. All I got was a dessert, that too a lousy one.
