The river mouths of Sarawak

Speaking of Sarawak in my previous post, I was reminded of a bunch of photos I took in 2004 when airborne on my way to Peninsular Malaysia. Snapped these when we were flying along the coast:

EDIT: Some people were confused looking at the photos: the yellow/brown area is the sea, the green area is the land. The brownest places are where the river mouths are – where the river meets the sea.

Does anyone know if that is pollution or just natural sediment flowing out of the river mouths? I tried googling “river mouth dark sediment” etc, but turned up nothing.

Considering the amount of logging and timber processing happening on river banks all over Sarawak, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the waste flows down river to the sea. The mud is eroded off the vegetation-stripped banks, and washed downstream. I just wonder, how much of the color in these images are a result of human activities. All I know, is that I lived three years next to the yellow Rajang River, watching bits of dirt and waste floating by with tugs (boats) pull flotillas of logs along the river…

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