The Sonai is one of the rivers the River and Delta Research Centre names as dead or drying up (2025): heavily silted, and fully or partly dry in the lean season; it is also listed by The Daily Star (World Rivers Day, 28 September 2025) among the rivers of its division under assault from grabbing, pollution or sand-lifting.
- Name
- Sonai · সোনাই
- Status
- Dead or drying, Grabbed or polluted
- Shared with
- India (Joint Rivers Commission)
- On the map
- Name shared
What the record says (4)
At least 79 of the 1,156 government-listed rivers have dried up or are drying up (RDRC study 'Dried Up Rivers of Bangladesh', 2025).
Source: The Daily Star, 20 Mar 2025
Most of these rivers are heavily silted and dry up in the lean season, mainly because water is diverted upstream; parts of some have vanished under encroachment.
Source: The Daily Star, 20 Mar 2025
An RDRC physical survey of 56 rivers across seven divisions (2022) found every one of them polluted.
Source: The Daily Star, 28 Sep 2025
57,390 individuals and organisations had grabbed 770 rivers; 18,579 were evicted in a year.
Source: The Daily Star, 28 Dec 2020