The four major rivers that make up the watersheds in southern and eastern Asia are the Mekong, the Yellow(Huang Ho), the Ganges, and the Yangtze. The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the fourth largest river in the world. It flows for 3,400 miles.China’s second longest river, the Yellow, is 2,900 miles long. The Mekong river, 2,600 miles in length, flows through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The sacred river in Asia, the Ganges, is 1,557 miles long and flows mostly through China and India.

The The Yangtze river is the longest river in Asia. It flows for 3,400 miles. It starts in the Kunlun Mountains of Tibet and flows to the east china sea, close to Shanghai. It is navigable for 700 miles and is one of the world’s busiest rivers.

(http://www.optonline.com/coptons/ceo/05264_A.html, 10/21/99)

It is heavily trafficked by cargo and passenger ships. The Yangtze basin is used for agriculture because the soil is rich. Half of China’s agricultural output is grown in the Yangtze Basin. Rice, cotton, barley, wheat, corn, beans, and hemp are the plants mostly grown here. The Yangtze has eight major tributaries. They are the Yalong, Min, Jialing, Han, Wu, Yuan, Xiang, and Gan rivers. With all of these tributaries there is tremendous force by the time it empties into the East China Sea. At the mouth of the river the average discharge is 1,200,700 cubic feet per second. Dams have been built to harness the hydroelectric energy.

When the monsoon season hits there is great flooding. In 1931, 140,000 people died because of one of these great floods. “The Yangtze river receives the largest quantity of waste water in China at 40 million tons a day, accounting for 41 percent of the countries total waste water discharge.”- (#yangtze, 10/21/99)

Ammonia nitrogen, potassium permanganate, and volatile phenols are the main pollutants, while there are high copper and arsenic indexes in some parts of the river. Compared to other China rivers though, the Yangtze is fairly healthy.

The Yellow river is China’s second longest river. It’s 2,900 miles long. The Yellow river is also called the Huang He and the Huang Ho. It gets its name the, Yellow river, because of the windblown silt that enters the river in the mid-section of the river making it look yellow. The Yellow river has also been nicknamed “China’s Sorrow” and the “River of Tears.” It has been called this because of the constant danger of flooding. Sometimes there are extreme floods that can kill millions of people. Because of the strange conditions from the river in 1887, more than two million people died from drowning, starvation, or the epidemics that followed. This causes there to be only two major cities along its banks. Chinese historians refer to the Yellow river as “The Cradle of Civilization.”

This river has played an important part in China’s history. In the dynastic era, many of the early capitols were located along this river. The Yellow river has three main tributaries. The main one is the Wei. The other two are the Fen and the Wuding. The river can be divided into two sections. The mountainous upper reaches and the plains portion. It starts in the Kunlun Mountains and empties in the Yellow sea near the Shandong Peninsula. Over the centuries, the mouth of the river has moved more than 500 miles. Only seven percent of the Yellow river’s main stream meets national quality standards.http://www.chinaenvironment.com/waste/waterpollution.html#yellow

10/21/99). Another problem with the river is that there is a great load of silt in the river. This makes it so that large boats can’t navigate it. The river can’t be used to create energy and use of the water is limited.

The Mekong river flows for 2,600 miles. It has a flow rate of 388 cubic feet per second http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/advisory/Water_Seminar/International_Basins/read/asian_rivers.htm, 10/19/99). It begins in the mountains of Tibet and empties out of Vietnam. It runs through five countries and serves as a boundary between Laos and Myanmar, and for Laos and Thailand. The other countries it flows through are China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. One thing that it is known for is the Khone Falls. It’s one of the world’s most powerful cataracts. The series of rapids and falls totals a drop of 70 feet. The Khone Falls has a mean annual flow of 410,000 cubic feet per second. At this section of the river it is eight miles wide. During the flood season the depth goes from 5 feet to 45 feet. At the mouth of the river the soil is rich, making it the world’s greatest producer of rice. The main pollutant of the Mekong is human waste.

The Ganges river flows mostly through India, Bangladesh, and China. It starts in an ice cave 10,300 feet above sea level in the Himalayas and flows into the Bay of Bengal. It flows for 1,557 miles. The Ganges river is considered to be sacred to the Hindus of India. They call it Gangamai which means “Mother Ganges”. They believe that the water heals them from sin, so many of them bathe in it. Another name for the Ganges is Bramaputra. It has two main tributaries flowing into it. They are the Yamuna river and the Hoolgly river. Some major cities along the Ganges are Calcutta, Varanasi, Allahbad, and Kanpur. The Ganges is a big source of food. It is called the “life-giving river,” because many people depend on it for irrigation for their crops. Fishing is also an important part of food source . The Ganges is the most important transportation in India, because water is the biggest form of transportation in India.(http://schools.4j.lane.edu/spencerbutte/stoproj/ganges.html, 9/21/99)

Pollution is a huge problem with the Ganges river. The biggest problem is the shear volume of waste. Estimated at nearly one billion litters of raw sewage enter the Ganges a day. Another reason is people bathe in it that have diseases and poor hygiene. Sometimes as many as one million people in one day http://schools.4j.lane.edu/spencerbutte/stuproj/ganges.html, 9/21/99). An obvious factor is chemicals being dumped by the industry. Another odd reason why the Ganges is being polluted is the Hindus cremate their dead bodies and toss them in the river, because they believe the river will purify them. The problem is that most of the times the bodies are not cremated well enough and it spreads diseases. And also the Hindus believe that the river can purify itself since it is sacred, so there isn't very much pollution control. So the Hindus are killing their own holy river.