The Brahmaputra River

The North-eastern state of Assam is dominated by the graceful yet furious Brahmaputra. This river is an important form of irrigation and transportation for Assamanese. Being one of the biggest rivers in the world it is HUGE!! It is about 2,900km long and the average depth of river is 38 metres, but in some places it reaches a whopping 120 meters. It is also up to 21 kilometers wide in some places. This river, although a giver of life is prone to catastrophic flooding in spring due to the Himalayan snows melting. Most rivers in Indian are know as female rivers, this is one of the few rivers in India that is known as a MALE river. What is even more bizare is that it is one of the few rivers in the world that has tides!

Due to the heavy rain monsoon rain falls, incredible floods can decimate the lands of Assam. These rains occur between the months of June – October and a very common occurrence. These powerful floods have also been addled by the fact that a lot of forest has been removed from the Kaziranga National Park, causing soil erosion and increased saltation levels. These floods can sometimes enter huge proportions, and have the ability too wipe out houses, crops and more importantly life. These ever returning floods have turned Assam into swampland.

A view of the Brahmaputra using google maps

However what is interesting is that there is a cycle of life that is centered around the Brahmaputra. Indeed it does destroy, but it is life line to everything around it.This periodic flooding is very important to the ecosystem, as it maintains the lowland grasslands and wildlife that live in these swamplands. These floods also replenish the soil and keep it extremely fertile.

The following are satellite images from 2008.  A whopping 1.2 million people felt the impact when the Brahmaputra River of northeastern India and Bangladesh flowed over its banks in this period. The enormity of the floods shown in these images are rather confronting…

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=20484

What is interesting about this river, and Assm is that for a long time steam ships navigated the river and tea traveled from the gardens upstream to London. In 1965 the route to the sea via Bangladesh was cut off when they gained their independence. As such the river no longer became the link for the people. They have built roads and now use other forms of transport in Assam now. It is rather strange, as the quickest way to get anywhere really in Assam is across the water.

Our Project

The question for us is what if the river became the center of these peoples lives again..? They all live around it yet use cars, motorcycles and other slow forms of transport to get around. Due to the constant rain Assam is a swampland, roads continually get washed away.

We are envisioning projects that involve the river as the center. Our idea is to fully embraced this river as in a new and exciting way. To look at it in a different way and come up with real possibilities that could be implemented on the Brahmaputra.

What if we built cities like this for the river?

What if we built these boats to help the people of Assam navigate their swamp lands..? Currently they dont have any transport for this need.

They have a powerful maritime industry there.. they could build these themselves!

Target Agency – Government: Office of the Chief Minister of Assam & Department of Design (IITG)