Commodities trade, river transport and colonialism: The Brahmaputra river valley in the nineteenth century

The article seeks to show how Assam’s riverine environment, and its natural resources, generated and inflected a process of commercialisation in the nineteenth century. Historically, present-day Assam was connected to the rest of the world through the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries. In the early decades of colonial rule, plants such as caoutchouc and tea were discovered in the valley. These developments, together with transportation networks built with state and private capital, heralded a new phase of commerce in the region. A rich scholarship in South Asian history has shown how the river played a crucial role in the economic changes in different regions. The article belongs in that scholarship but stresses the role of the river as an artery of transportation rather than as an agricultural resource. The river system facilitated Assam’s closer integration with the world economy and the colonial regime.

The ways of speaking and the means of knowing

Tariana is an Arawak language spoken by about a hundred people in the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area in Brazil. A number of grammatical features reflect specific traits of the ways the people live. Manipulating genders correlates with the status of women: a respected and knowledgeable woman can be referred to with nonfeminine gender, as if 'promoted' to manhood. Classifiers occur in multiple environments, including number words, demonstratives, adjectives, and possessive constructions. Classifiers with specific semantics reflect riverine environment, taxonomic categorization of plants, and means of subsistence. Five evidentials obligatorily mark information source. Their use correlates with the requirement to be precise in stating how one knows things, and in the types of access to information. Nonvisual evidentials are used in talking about the feelings, physical states and uncontrolled actions of oneself and one’s core family members. Speakers are aware of the meanings and the uses of evidential, and are prepared to discuss and explain them. Evidentials are sensitive to technological changes, as they adjust to new ways of acquiring information. Evidentials and classifiers are shared across the multilingual area of the Vaupés River Basin. Contact between speakers of adjacent languages appear to have shaped the speakers’ interaction patterns and the associated language features. In contrast, gender manipulation is being lost by younger speakers, as the status of women undergoes transformations.

One of a Kind

Noun categorization devices, or classifiers, of all types are a means of classifying referents in terms of basic cognitively salient parameters. These include humanness, animacy, sex, shape, direction and orientation, consistency, and function. In large systems of classifiers, one finds additional terms whose application is restricted to a limited set of referents, or even just to a single referent. For instance, numerous languages of Mainland Southeast Asia have elaborate sets of specific classifiers in the domain of social hierarchies and human interactions. Languages with multiple classifier systems spoken in riverine environment will be likely to have a special classifier for ‘canoe’. Rather than categorizing entities in terms of general features, such classifiers with specific meanings serve to highlight items important for the socio-cultural environment of the speakers and their means of subsistence. Specific classifiers are likely to be lost if a practice or a hierarchy they reflect undergoes attrition. They occupy a singular place in language acquisition and the history of development of classifier systems.

DIVERS' ACTIONS IN THE RIVERINE AREA

This approach proposes an analysis and a presentation of divers’ actions in the riverine area in order to combat the risks and the threats which can occur there, correlated with the features and the characteristics of the environment and with the objectives of the Navy. The identification of new insights and opportunities of involving the divers in this domain through concrete, focused actions having a maximum effect in the preservation of a security climate in the riverine area is the novelty of this approach. While analyzing the actual possibilities of divers’ actions in the riverine area, this article is pleading regarding the importance of using divers in this environment and it is structured on two directions. The actions of the military divers in the riverine area contain these directions that meet the national objectives regarding maintenance or getting the control over the main economic and military objectives concomitant with the research, capture or destruction of enemy`s forces. I am addressing this approach to the specialists and to those who are interested in divers’ way of actions in the riverine environment. Divers are an especially important tool among the whole range of military actions in the riverine area. The actions taken by divers usually offer depth to the campaign and they have a significant role in preserving the riverine area.

Jokiuoman kartoitus ja virtausolosuhteiden mallinnus tukena perkauksen suunnittelussa: esimerkkinä Eurajoki

Dredging has a significant effect on sediment transportation, water quality and flow conditions in a river channel. However, often the effects of dredging are not studied carefully in advance. One reason for this is the lack of suitable study approach. Studies on river dynamics require high quality geometric models of riverbed, banks and floodplain. Accurate terrain and bathymetric data are also crucial components of reliable hydraulic modelling. In this study, we created an approach to model the presumable impacts of dredging. We modelled high discharges and annual flooding magnitudes in Eurajoki River, SW Finland in its current form and after dredging. As the low-sloped channel is heavily vegetated, the aim of the dredging is to improve flow conditions by removing sediment and vegetation within a reach of 8 km. First, we created a geometric model of the riverine environment by combining riverbank topography from national Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data by the Finnish National Land Survey and bathymetry, gathered with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP). The ADCP was attached to a kayak to enable access to shallow areas as well. This way, we were able to model the geometry of the fluvial forms within a few centimetres’ accuracy. Next, we modified the model of the river geometry using GIS software according to the dredging plan. Finally, we used a 2D Computational Fluid Dynamics to model the current and after dredging flow conditions during various flow events. We analysed the effects on dredging on the flood magnitudes and flow conditions based on the models and compared these to the present situation. These models offer improvements on river management and observing the effects on dredging.

Distribution and Seasonal Variation of Microplastics in Tallo River, Makassar, Eastern Indonesia

Attention towards microplastic (MP) pollution in various environments is increasing, but relatively little attention has been given to the freshwater-riverine environment. As the biggest city in the eastern Indonesia region, Makassar can be a potential source of MP pollution to its riverine area. This study aimed to determine the spatial trends, seasonal variation, and characteristics of MPs in the water and sediment of Tallo River, as the main river in Makassar. Water samples were collected using a neuston net and sediment samples were collected using a sediment corer. The samples collected contained MPs with an abundance ranging from 0.74 ± 0.46 to 3.41 ± 0.13 item/m3 and 16.67 ± 20.82 to 150 ± 36.06 item/kg for water and sediment samples, respectively. The microplastic abundance in the Tallo River was higher in the dry season and tended to increase towards the lower river segment. Fragments (47.80–86.03%) and lines (12.50–47.80%) were the predominant shapes, while blue (19.49–46.15%) and transparent (14.29–38.14%) were the most dominant color. Polyethylene and polypropylene were the common MP polymers found in the Tallo river. Actions to prevent MP pollution in the Makassar riverine area are needed before MP pollution becomes more severe in the future.

Approaches for assessing riverine scour

Calculating scour potential in a stream or river is as much a geomorphological art as it is an exact science. The complexity of stream hydraulics and heterogeneity of river-bed materials makes scour predictions in natural channels uncertain. Uncertain scour depths near high-hazard flood-risk zones and flood-risk management structures lead to over-designed projects and difficult flood-risk management decisions. This Regional Sediment Management technical report presents an approach for estimating scour by providing a decision framework that future practitioners can use to compute scour potential within a riverine environment. This methodology was developed through a partnership with the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Hydrologic Engineering Center, and St. Paul District in support of the Lower American River Contract 3 project in Sacramento, CA.

Evaluation of Radon (222Rn) Distribution and its Implications vis-a-vis Water Quality of Killiyar River, Kerala, India

The discharge of tropical rivers is mainly contributed by the baseflow from groundwater especially during summer. Hence, in order to sustain the environmental flow of rivers, the conservation of locations where groundwater discharges into river is a better option than conventional practices viz., redesigning river channel structure and flow regime. Radon (222Rn), a colourless, odourless, inert and natural radioactive noble gas (t1/2= 3.8 days), can be used as a proxy to trace the groundwater discharge location/s in the river course. As 222Rn readily dissolves in groundwater, its content in groundwater is relatively higher than surface water. We report here the activity of 222Rn in the river water at ten locations from upstream to downstream of Killiyar river – KR (n= 6th, L= 24 km, A= 102 km2), the main tributary of Karamana river, Kerala, India. Surface water samples (n=10) were collected during pre- and post-monsoon of 2017. The radon activity was performed by RAD7, an electronic radon detector (Durridge Company Inc., USA). The activity of radon varied from 157 to 4588 Bq/m3 in pre-monsoon and 147 to 1740 Bq/m3 in post-monsoon. The spatial variability of 222Rn activity is observed, and the anomalous high activity location/s indicates groundwater potential in that area. Further, the factors controlling spatial variation of radon were also discussed. Moreover, physico-chemical parameters of river water were also studied. And all the parameters were found to be within the permissible limit of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) specifications for potable water (IS -10500: 2012). This is a case study of application of radon for prospecting groundwater potential zones in Killiyar river course, henceforth useful for the water resource management in this riverine environment and is first of its kind in the study region.