The Teesta 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.
- Name
- Teesta · তিস্তা
- Status
- Dead or drying
- Length
- 120 km (official river list, 2025)
- Shared with
- India (Joint Rivers Commission)
- On the map
- Drawn on the map
- Map names
- Teesta · Teesta River
What the record says (4)
At Kaunia, the Teesta's peak discharge fell from 8,577 m³/s (2004) to 1,629 m³/s (2013), and its annual minimum dropped to 1.47 m³/s in 2012. The basin supports 11.5 million people and about 14% of Bangladesh's farmland.
Source: Rahman et al., 2026
Teesta erosion displaced more than 20,000 families in a decade, by BWDB data.
Source: Dhaka Tribune, 30 Oct 2025
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