Nepal, March 29 -- Rivers have been the lifelines of civilisations with their dynamic ecosystems providing vital services for human survival and ecological balance through the ages.

But accelerating anthropocentric footprints are causing severe, and often irreversible, damage to river systems across the world, including those across High Asia, a region that sustains nearly a fourth of the global population downstream.

An example is the Bagmati River that courses through Kathmandu, crosses the Himalayan foothills to join the Ganga in India. A river that once shaped the Kathmandu Valley Civilisation is now a polluted and biologically dead water body constricted by urban sprawl, choked by construction debris, chemical waste and untreated ...