Discoursing River from Physical and Social Backdrops

Abstract

The sinuous natural flow of a river as a fluvial process incorporating hydraulics with its concomitant erosion, transportation, deposition, development of landforms, flood etc. is the most lucrative study in geomorphology under the backdrop of channel development, valley configuration, basin dynamics, riparian regime and so on. Apart from this channelized flow, a large number of rivers and their drainage basins are viewed as the riverine landscape and also riverine ecology where the river, river basin and its adjacent terrestrial surface are conceptualized into an integrated complex of soil, water, biota, productive cropland and even the settlement. But due to the use, abuse, and overuse of rivers and non-judicious human activities, most of the riverine landscape of the world is degraded, some are extremely degraded. The social backdrop of the riverine landscape puts both a positive and negative outlook. In the social backdrop, a river with its materialistic and non-materialistic appeal influences the beliefs, thoughts, urge, and emotion of the people therein for ages after ages, shaping the economy and culture into a distinct pattern of life popularly coded as river valley civilization. Therefore, discoursing river associates and integrates not only as a channelized flow, but also as a process, a system, and also as a historical-socio-cultural construction.