India, Feb. 7 -- The relentless erosion along the upper Brahmaputra in Assam is often blamed on floods alone. However, new scientific evidence shows that the real driver lies deeper in the region's active tectonics.

A detailed study by Girindra Bora, Tapos Kumar Goswami (Dibrugarh University) and Bashab Nandan Mahanta (Geological Survey of India) shows that large-scale river shifts in Upper Assam are guided by fault lines, crustal movement and earthquake-triggered sediment surges, not by random river behaviour.

Using historical maps from 1926 and satellite imagery up to 2022, the authors traced changes in the Siang, Dibang and Lohit rivers. They identified the 1950 Assam earthquake as a major turning point that destabilised river course...