Description
Book SynopsisRivers of the Asian Highlands introduces readers to the intersecting headwaters of Asia's eight largest rivers, focusing on the upper reaches of two river systems: the Brahmaputra's highland tributaries in the eastern Himalayan Mountains and the Dri Chu (upper Yangzi), which descends from the Tibetan Plateau's east through the Hengduan Mountains.
This book guides its readers through these two rivers' physical, environmental, cultural, social, and political histories before providing a multi-faceted assessment of their present. It uses general and detailed insights from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, conservation, geomorphology, climate science, ecology, history, hydrology, and religious studies. The rivers' stories explain how the catchments' hazardsearthquakes, landslides, floods, droughts, and erosioninteract with their energetic, hydrological, ecological, cultural, and social abundance.
The book's multiple cultural and disciplinary perspectives o