Chinese scientists have completed a comprehensive satellite study of cross-border Tibetan rivers determining their exact sources besides measuring the length of their drainage basins. Besides mapping out the course of Brahmaputra, the photographic analysis using expeditions and satellite imagery, the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) also collected details about the flow of Indus which flows through India and Pakistan besides Salween and Irrawaddy rivers. Salween and Irrawaddy flows through Burma.
The result of their analysis and field investigations showed that the Brahmaputra River, called Yarlungzangbo in Tibetan language, originates on the Angsi Glacier, located on the northern side of the Himalayas in Burang County of Tibet not Chema-yungdung glacier, which previously identified by geographer Swami Pranavananda in the 1930s. The river is 3848 km long, and its drainage area is 712035 square km according to the new findings, while previous documents showed its length varied from 2900 to 3350 km and its drainage area between 520000 and 1.73 million square kms. The data could be useful in the fifth of round of expert's level talks between India and China to exchange hydrological data and flood management of Brahmaputra.
Indus River originates in a valley northeast of Kailash, in Geji County of Tibet. Its headstream, called Banggokong by local Tibetans, is about 30 kilometers away from Senge Khambab, which Sven Hedin believed was the source of the river more than 100 years ago. The new findings show that the Indus River is 3600 km long, against previously believed 2900 or 3200 km. Its drainage area is more than one million square km. The four rivers originate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau along with the Yangtze, Yellow, Mekong and Ganges rivers, and provide water for about 1.3 billion people.
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