QUICK FACTS
The place is it? Yarlung Zangbo River, Tibet Autonomous Area of China [29.2814054, 91.3256581]
What’s within the photograph? The braided branches of a river winding by the Tibetan Plateau
Which satellite tv for pc took the photograph? Landsat 9
When was it taken? Feb. 8, 2025
This placing satellite tv for pc photograph reveals a very convoluted part of a record-breaking “braided river” in China, which drastically modifications form yearly and will grow to be extra unstable over the approaching many years resulting from local weather change.
The photographed part of the river is situated in Zhanang County, simply earlier than it passes by the world’s deepest land-based canyon and its namesake, the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, which is greater than 6,000 meters (20,000 toes) deep — or thrice deeper than Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
Yarlung Zangbo is a basic instance of a braided river — a waterway with “multi-threaded channels that department and merge to create the attribute braided sample,” with mid-channel sandbars which are “fashioned, consumed, and re-formed repeatedly,” in keeping with the Nationwide Park Service.
This part is the place essentially the most braiding happens wherever alongside the river, with as much as 20 channels throughout at sure factors within the picture.
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Yarlang Zangbo’s excessive braiding is brought on by heavy sediment deposits from the steep slopes of the adjoining Himalayas, that are washed into the river and assist carve new channels into the bottom, Zoltán Sylvester, a geologist on the College of Texas at Austin, instructed the Earth Observatory. The river modifications form so typically that no vegetation can absolutely develop on the sandbars that sporadically seem between the river’s braids, he added.
You’ll be able to see how shortly the river modifications form for your self in a 37-year timelapse animation, which reveals annual satellite tv for pc photographs of this spot taken between 1988 to 2025 by Landsat 5, Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 (see beneath).
Eagle-eyed viewers may additionally be capable to spot a slim bridge, which was constructed over the shapeshifting waterway in 2014. (It is seen as a skinny line close to the far right-hand facet of the animation).
The river begins on the Angsi Glacier, rising from a stream of meltwater that flows from the ice mass. Nonetheless, this was solely formally confirmed in 2011, in keeping with Chinese language state media. Earlier than this, there was confusion amongst scientists about whether or not the river really originated from a meltwater stream coming from the close by Chemayungdung Glacier.
Like many different Himalayan ice plenty, the Angsi Glacier has misplaced a major quantity of water in latest many years resulting from human-caused local weather change. The ensuing meltwater has precipitated extra sediment to be deposited into the river, which might enhance erosion and make it extra doubtless for its banks to break down. In line with a 2024 examine that analyzed satellite tv for pc pictures of the 13 main rivers within the Tibetan Plateau, this poses a danger to native ecosystems, infrastructure and panorama stability.
When the river finally reaches India, it turns into a part of the Brahmaputra River and continues for one more 1,800 miles (2,900 km) till it reaches the Ganges River Delta, the place it drains into the Indian Ocean, in keeping with the Earth Observatory.
