Padma
| Padma | ||
 Course of the Padma in the center of Bangladesh |
||
| Data | ||
| location | Bangladesh | |
| River system | Meghna | |
| source | Confluence of the Ganges (Upper Padma) and Jamuna 23 ° 48 ′ 20 ″ N , 89 ° 44 ′ 40 ″ E |
|
| Source height | 6 m | |
| crossing | in the Lower Meghna at the confluence with the Upper Meghna at Chandpur Coordinates: 23 ° 14 ′ 20 ″ N , 90 ° 37 ′ 40 ″ E 23 ° 14 ′ 20 ″ N , 90 ° 37 ′ 40 ″ E |
|
| Mouth height | 0.5 m | |
| Height difference | 5.5 m | |
| Bottom slope | 0.05 ‰ | |
| length | 117 km | |
| Catchment area | 1,640,000 km² | |
| Drain |
MQ HHQ |
32,000 m³ / s 150,000 m³ / s |
| Left tributaries | (Upper Meghna ) | |
| Right tributaries | ( Ganges , also called Upper Padma ) | |
| Navigable | Yes | |
| penultimate section of the largest river in Asia | ||
 Horizon Padma with fishing boats |
||
The Padma ( Bengali : পদ্মা , Padmā , " lotus blossom ") is the penultimate section of the largest river in Asia by volume, almost 120 kilometers long .
course
Today, the section that begins with the confluence of the Ganges and the larger Brahmaputra ( called Jamuna in the lower section ) and ends at the mouth of the Upper Meghna , which flows further south-east at Chandpur , is considered to be the Padma . The current then carries the name Lower Meghna for the last 130 kilometers to the confluence with the Bay of Bengal . Colloquially, however, the lowest main branch of the Ganges is also called Padma in Bangladesh , starting from the earlier (now replaced by a canal) junction of the south-flowing Bhagirathi , which later reaches the Gulf of Bengal as Hugli in the Kolkata area . This Padma Ganges has a natural (today reduced by human intervention) mean water flow of around 11,400 m³ / s. It joins near Aricha and Shivalaya with the Jamuna, the main stream of the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh, whose mean discharge is 20,100 m³ / s. The following actual Padma forms an almost straight river bed 3 to 8 kilometers wide, the flat areas of which are often interspersed with sandbanks , and whose stream channels can reach a depth of over 30 meters.
River history and naming
After several large-scale flow shifts within this current system over the past 250 years, the Padma is now the part of the main train Tsangpo - Brahmaputra - Jamuna -Padma- Lower Meghna , between the mouth of points of the two largest tributaries is, namely the right to come Ganges and of left coming Meghna. In the 18th century, however, the Padma was next to the Bhagirathi the left of two arms of equal rank of the Ganges, both of which flowed directly into the sea. Today's tributary of the Jamuna, called the Old Brahmaputra , marks the course of the Brahmaputra at that time, which ran so far to the east that the two rivers flowed into the Bay of Bengal almost separately from each other. This former situation is still reflected in the naming, even if the main streams run very differently today. This explains the similarity of names to very different river sections such as Brahmaputra, Meghna or Padma and also the variety of names in the course of the main river mentioned. The shift of the Ganges to the Padma arm and the Brahmaputra to the west, i.e. also towards the Padma, is explained on the one hand by tectonic uplift in the western Ganges delta and on the other hand as the consequences of an earthquake in 1782 and a flood disaster in 1787, during which too the great tributary Tista shifted its course from the Ganges to the Brahmaputra.
use
Around 15 kilometers before the Ganges crosses the border from India to Bangladesh near Shibganj (Chapai Nababganj), a large part of the water at the Farakka Dam, built in 1974, is diverted and fed to the Bhagirathi arm, with the result that in dry periods the water below in Bangladesh is irrigated Soils are too salty and navigation on the river is hindered. The derivation is mainly used for shipping on the Hugli in the area of Calcutta .
Further below, the Ganges, already called Padma , is spanned by the 1.6-kilometer-long Hardinge Bridge , which was built from 1910 to 1915. The Lalon Shah road bridge , built in 1997-2004, is only 300 meters downstream from this . The Padma Bridge has been under construction on the lower reaches of the river since 2015 and is due to open in 2018 and would then be the longest bridge in South Asia.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Joint Rivers Commission Bangladesh, Ministry of Water Resources: Basin Map of the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna River ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The information on the HQ fluctuates between 120,000 and 200,000 m³ / s
- ↑ Jun Jian, Peter J. Webster, * Carlos D. Hoyos: Large-scale controls on Ganges and Brahmaputra river discharge on intraseasonal and seasonal time-scales (PDF; 4.1 MB) QJR Meteorol. Soc. 135: 353-370 (2009), today's mean discharge reduced by diversion to Bhagirathi at Farakka Dam
- ↑ a b V. N. Mikhailov, MA Dotsenko: Processes of Delta Formation in the Mouth Area of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 444 kB)
