Ther River Ganges Delta forms from the three main rivers in Bangladesh, the River Ganges, the River Meghna and the River Brahmaputra. The area surrounding it is, and has been, prone to severe flooding over the past decades and this extreme of flooding has many effects on the surrounding area and on the inhabitants living in the area. Some of these effects are detrimental to the quality of life, but the floods do bring some consequences which are of value and benefit to those living in Bangladesh.
There are many reasons to explain why the River Ganges is so liable to flooding, and I will explain some of these causes within this essay. Some of these such reasons are caused by man and his influence in the area, and others are due to natural attributes of the area such as the climate and relief.
One such cause of flooding is the length of the river itself: it stretches for a distance of almost 2500 kilometres, and has a massive drainage basin of over half a million square kilometres. The sheer scale of the drainage basin is important in that within this area many different environments are enveloped: over such a large area, there are many varied types of land and climate variations, each with it's own problems including flooding, and so the river must deal with all of these as they are included within it's drainage basin. .
Within this drainage basin we see the source of the River ganges: it gains its volume of water from meltwater from the great glaciers high in the Himalayas, which are eroded and melted as the flow of water travels downhill. This input of water can vary with the climate and severity of the erosion, and so the amount of water entering the river can vary, causing unreliability. Bangladesh can suffer from flash floods, giving those living the little warning to prepare.
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At a point known as a transfer zone, several rivers enter the main river, forcing it to quickly deal with a large, sudden influx of water.
