State of Our Rivers

Is your place blessed with a clear flowing river nearby? Have you experienced bathing in it and doing fishing in it? If yes, you are so lucky. All the people in your neighborhood are as lucky as you are. You are blessed with a healthy river, because probably, you and your neighbors respect the river and don’t throw anything in it. Not everybody is as blessed as you. They do have rivers too, but the question is: Is it not polluted?

It is a saddening fact that there are some people who give little consideration to the importance of their rivers. They don’t see the long term function of the river, so they just dump in their waste anytime they like, thinking that they got rid of their trash. But principles of ecology say that that human waste will just always go somewhere.

Rivers and the surrounding land drained by them (catchments) are highly significant wildlife habitats. The water itself provides the environment for fish, plants and other aquatic animals, while the banks and nearby land support creatures such as otters, kingfishers, frogs, dragonflies and a variety of water-dependent plants.

If you care for the rivers, you would care for the trees too. Trees are critical proponents in creating a river because they gently emit the water through their roots which forms the initial body of the river. The origin of rivers, therefore is up in the mountains or hills, where rain water or snowmelt collects and forms tiny streams called gullies. Gullies either grow larger when they collect more water from more roots and become streams themselves or meet streams and add to the water already in the stream. When one stream meets another and they merge together, the smaller stream is known as a tributary. The two streams meet at a junction. It takes many tributary streams to form a river. A river grows larger as it collects water from more tributaries. Streams usually form rivers in the higher elevations of mountains and hills.

Is your place blessed with a clear flowing river nearby? Have you experienced bathing in it and doing fishing in it?