River pollution and anthropocene: sustainable river ethics way to river basin planning and management

Abstract

The drainage basin is considered a fundamental unit of hydrogeomorphic investigation for its integration between upper, middle, and lower stretches (Islam and Deb Barman 2020). Often a river basin scale (or a part of it) or a regional scale planning is adopted for developmental purposes across the world (Barrow 1998; Molle 2017), especially in the ‘Anthropocene’— the era of human interventions (Crutzen and Stoermer 2021; Alvarado and Quesada-Román 2024). Because of the hydrological and agroecological advantages, the legacy of the riverbank civilization still continues in the world since the historical past (Islam and Ghosh 2022; Sarkar et al. 2024). Since its inception, human civilizations interact and intervene with the fluvial system to get the maximum benefit.