ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the background of natural environment against which the inter-relations between agricultural possibilities and the movement and distribution of population appear to be really significant. In agricultural economy the two obviously uncontrollable factors of natural environment are soil and rainfall. In the Ganges Delta agricultural water-supply has a unique importance. The entire balance of agricultural economy depends not only upon heavy rainfall, but also upon the deltaic river-system which is an important source of irrigation. The only factors of the natural environment which really count in the Gangetic Delta are rainfall and river floods, the two important sources of agricultural water-supply. The chapter estimates the relative importance of these two factors it is necessary to study the variations in the amount and distribution of rainfall in relation to variations in the density of population in the moribund and the active delta.
