The Brahmaputra Board’s new river atlas: mapping the river that owns the maps

The Brahmaputra Board’s new river atlas, compiled from a decade of satellite surveys, is the most detailed map of the river ever produced — and its central finding is that the river refuses to stay mapped.

The channel shifts, the sandbars walk, and the atlas updates quarterly to keep up.

Engineers hope the data will finally make embankment planning rational; residents of the chars hope it will make it humane.