Asian rivers top WWF’s ‘endangered’ list

Also on the list are the Rio Grande/ Rio Bravo and La Plata in Latin America, the Danube in central Europe, the Nile-Lake Victoria in Africa and the Murray-Darling in Australia.

“Nearly everybody in the world lives in a river basin and everybody has a contribution to make” to prevent further environmental damage, said the director of WWF’s Global Freshwater Programme Jamie Pittock.

The threats facing river basins are varied and interlinked, and require holistic policies rather than efforts that target just one aspect but can end up being counter-productive, he said. For example, “as governments become concerned about climate change reducing water run-off, they build more dams to store more water, which then results in more water being extracted from the rivers and so builds up more ecological problems,” Pittock said.

Many governments are also focusing on hydro-electric power plants as a “clean” source of energy, but this means more dams which stem water flows and kill off fish populations, he added.

GANGA IN TROUBLED WATERS TOO

The ten river basins across the world which face the greatest risk of drying out:

Rio Grande

Flows through: US, Mexico

Length: 1,890 miles.

Key threats: Water extraction, salination, invasive species

Dependent wildlife: 69 of the 121 fish species found nowhere else

Yangtze

Flows through: China

Length: 3,910 miles

Key threats: Pollution, 105 planned dams, overfishing

Dependent wildlife: 350 fish species including Yangtze Sturgeon, 160 amphibian species, Finless Porpoise, Chinese Alligator, Giant Panda, and the largest salamander in the world

Mekong

Flows through: China, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia

Length: 2,860 miles

Key threats: Overfishing, 149 dams planned, deforestation, pollution

Dependent wildlife: Mekong giant catfish (the world’s largest freshwater fish), 160 amphibian species, estimated 1,700 fish species, Irrawaddy river dolphin

Salween

Flows through: China, Burma, Thailand

Length: 1,740 miles

Key threats: 16 proposed dams

Dependent wildlife: The fishing cat, Siamese crocodile, small panda, wild donkey of Dulong, 92 amphibian species. 47 of its 143 fish species are found nowhere else

Murray-Darling basin

Flows through: Australia

Length: 2,100 miles

Key threats: Invasive species, salinisation, climate change

Dependent wildlife: Silver perch, freshwater catfish, Murray cod, crayfish and freshwater snails, 16 mammal and 35 bird species

Ganga

Flows through: India, but also drains from Nepal and China

Length: 1,560 miles

Key threats: Water extraction, 14 proposed dams, climate change

Dependent wildlife: Ganges river dolphin, freshwater shark (Glyphis gangeticus), 140 fish species and 90 amphibian species

Indus

Flows through: Pakistan, but also drains from Afghanistan, India and China

Length: 1,800 miles

Key threats: Climate change, water extraction, pollution, 6 proposed dams

Dependent wildlife: Indus river dolphin, 22 of 147 species of fish are found nowhere else, 25 amphibian species

La Plata basin

Flows through: Paraguay, Brazil, Uraguay, Bolivia, Argentina

Length: 2,500 miles

Key threats: 27 proposed dams, dredging, overfishing, climate change, pollution

Dependent wildlife: La Plata river dolphin, ocelots, 85 of 350 species of fish are found nowhere else, more than 1,600 species of flowering plants. Fills the Pantanal, the largest freshwater wetland in the world

Nile

Flows through: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and drains from Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Kenya.

Length: 4,160 miles

Key threats: Climate change, extraction, invasive species

Dependent wildlife: Nile crocodile, 26 of its 129 fish species are found nowhere else, 137 amphibian species

Danube

Flows through: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria

Length: 1,730 miles

Key threats: 8 proposed dams, shipping infrastructure, flood protection measures, pollution, invasive species

Dependent wildlife: 7 of its 103 fish species and 18 of its 88 freshwater molluscs are found nowhere else