AE401ATechnical CommunicationMAJOR RIVER ISSUES IN INDIA
Instructor- Dr. CS Upadhyay
By Mukesh Kumar Singh Roll 11442Dated: 31/8/2014INTRODUCTION
Being the perennial source of water, rivers have been the
lifelines of mankind from centuries and will continue to be so.
Human beings will do well to preserve them for their own sake. The
nature of a river can be changed owing to two factors natural and
manmade. This report will confine itself to understand the way man
has exploited rivers and the consequences hence produced.
Historically, the world population remained more or less stagnant
till eighteenth century. But after the industrial revolution,
population shoot up to around seven billion today from a stagnant
one billion. The population growth was driven by increased
productivity. Both continuously raising production and population
growth ultimately results in ever increasing demand of water. To
meet these growing demand, rivers are channelized to ensure water
reaches to water deficient areas. Everybody is aware of the dire
water crisis. Then why this dont care approach? Francis Bacon, a
corrupt judge and an unscrupulous politician, is considered to be
the first philosopher of modern science. To Bacon nature was an
enemy which needed to be defeated and tortured - the expression was
his - so that its secrets or powers could be extracted for the
benefit of the human race. With this attitude men progressed with
and after industrial revolution. A pathetic notion of growth came
to define human development, that is, if you consume what you
produce then you dont produce. So all the beautiful nature cycles
were excluded from the purview of development. They were taken for
granted and exploited ruthlessly. In the long run, we reached a
state where we are. All the major disputes are related with river
water sharing. Science has been reduced to the level of mere
technological sophistications. This is revealed by the fact that by
the mid-1980s the proportion of pure scientists to all scientists
in the world had fallen to less than five per cent, and the
proportion is reportedly falling at a faster rate now. The blurring
line between science and technology is very dangerous. Production
of technology requires investment and hence has no moral character
as long as investor is making profit. The invocation of the
'temper' almost invariably goes with a negative reading of India's
traditional cultures and ways of life, seen as impediments to a
modern technological order, and with the search for uncritical
legitimacy for all forms of technology - seen as an
undifferentiated mass of knowledge, institutions and persons. Thus
traditional modes of conserving water were ruined. Ponds were
encroached upon. Wells were filled with modern technologies
available to extract groundwater. Local management of water was
nowhere on the agenda. These scarcities of water burdened rivers
hugely. Pursuit of ever increasing industrial production has made
the river basins fragile. To ensure fresh water availability to our
future generation, multi-pronged initiatives are required to be
taken urgently.DAMAGING RIVERS AND CONSEQUENCES
Human actions and their consequences on river systems are
described below. The use of water bodies as sink for industrial
effluents: - Industrial effluents are main sources of direct and
often continuous input of pollutants to rivers. These pollutants
include heavy metals, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls,
dioxins, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, petrochemicals, phenolic
compounds and microorganisms. Major sources of these effluents are
pharmaceuticals and personal care products industries (PPCPs), soap
and detergent industries, paper mill industries, textile mill
industries, brewery industries, tannery industries, soft drink
industries, chemical industries, organic wastes, palm oil mill
industries. Some heavy metals contained in these effluents are
found to be carcinogenic. Some of the wastes are oxygen consuming
which can impact the marine ecosystem in a big way. Apart from
this, the wastewaters contain suspended solids, both degradable and
non-bio degradable organics, oils and greases, heavy metal ions,
dissolved inorganics, acids, bases and coloring compounds. Large
dams temples of modern India? : - The environmental and other
impacts are project-specific and vary from case to case. But
generalized features are described below: 1. The very processes of
construction involves violent disturbance of nature and a
tremendous upheaval in the lives of local inhabitants.2. Creation
of large reservoirs causes submergence of land (agricultural or
forest or rural or urban settlements), displacement of people and
their live stocks, the loss of occupations and so on.3. Stilling of
flowing water brings about drastic changes in its morphology and
quality like temperature stratification, variation in nutrient
contents and dissolved oxygen to name a few. These have grave
consequences on marine life and riparian life. Decay of organic
matters can also lead to emissions of greenhouse gases.4. Fish
population is doomed to decline rapidly because movement is impeded
and spawning hindered.5. Wildlife habitats and routes of movement
are disrupted. Food chain can be broken. Some species could
disappear and in turn other species could be affected.6. Flora too
could be affected through construction processes, submergence and
other factors. 7. Reservoirs and canals could facilitate the spread
of disease vectors and lead to an increased incidence of malaria,
filariasis etc. 8. Creation can bring large climatological
changes.9. Project in seismically active areas such as Himalayan
region are subjected to the risk of earthquakes. Highly debatable
reservoir induced seismicity is an issue.10. The damming of a river
affects the whole river regime. Flows downstream carry reduced
amount of silt and nutrients. Flows are reduced themselves.
Riparian economy might be affected.11. There is a certain and
unavoidable risk involved in the damming of rivers. Under normal
circumstances, dams acts as flood avoiding agents but under
exceptional circumstances, they can be utterly devastating like in
case of dam breaking, or water discharge to save the structure. 12.
Damming of river for interlinking will cut down sediment supply and
erode fertile deltas and coasts destroying coastal ecosystems. It
can also impact seasonal monsoon in a significant way. Freshwater
from rivers are less dense than saline water and float over sea
water. This intensifies the temperature gradient required for
monsoon to occur. Over-extraction of Water: - Traditionally, large
dam projects have been main agents of irrigation. A World Bank
study has though pointed out that their roles are limited.
Reservoirs have reached their capacities. There are cases where
rivers have reached their partial or full closure, that is, water
fails to reach the sea in seasons of less annual rainfall. This
excessive capture of water in the basin has led to more evaporation
of water hence more humidity and changing temperature regime. This
has altered regional climate aggravating saline ground water
intrusion, and putting at risk the delicate wetland and estuarine
ecology which is important not only for aquatic habitats and
fisheries, but also for preventing shore erosion. With river flow
cut to a large extent, many urban, domestic and industrial, wastes
which could have been diluted otherwise, have aggravated the
problem of pollution. Socio-cultural and Religious Causes: - Though
one of the major causes of river water pollution is industrial
wastes, but socio-cultural and religious practices, especially in
India, aggravate the problem. Statues of Hindu gods, flowers, pots
and ashes are thrown into Indian rivers daily without a thought.
Several Hindu rituals make it mandatory for people to use rivers as
a vital component. "Earlier, if a body was floated in the river, it
was consumed by crocodiles, but these days there are no crocodiles
left in rivers because of the pollution. So these dead bodies only
add to the filth and pollution in the river," Rajender Singh says.
Singh has been campaigning for the cleaning of several small and
big rivers in the country for more than 30 years. Bad Planning and
Management: - Rivers do not merely provide water but support
various economic activities and hence attract proper planning and
management. Many tourism spots, religious and cultural cities,
sanctuaries etc. are situated on the banks of rivers. They are
needed to properly planned and monitored.
CASE STUDY OF TROBLED RIVERS1. GANGA How grave the situation is:
- Pollution: - The River runs for some 2,500 kilometers (1,550
miles), with more than two dozen major urban centers located on its
banks. With many factories and business dumping toxic chemicals
into the river, human sewage compounds the situation. An estimated
3 billion liters (800,000 gallons) of sewage is released into the
Ganges each day, of which only a third - according official figures
- is processed by treatment plants. Agricultural businesses are
also draining the river basin and adding toxic pesticides and
fertilizers into the river system. Ganga was ranked among top 5
most polluted rivers of the world in 2007 with fecal coliform
levels found 100 times more than official Indian Government limit
in Varanasi. Pollution threatens not only humans but also more than
140 fish species, 90 amphibian species and endangered Ganga river
dolphins Amount of water: - Volume flow rate till 1846, without
canals and several water extraction, would not have been less than
500m3/s at Prayag while measured in 2011, it was just 38m3/s. It
means 90% of water has been diverted according to Prof. GD Agarwal,
who once was Head of Department of Civil and Environmental
Department at IIT Kanpur. Ganga Damned: - The Ganga is in serious
danger from 600 dams that are either operational, under
construction or proposed. These dams will not only obstruct the
rivers natural flow and divert water into tunnels to power
turbines, but will also have cascading effect on the livelihood of
communities and the biodiversity and stability of the surrounding
natural ecosystems. Downstream communities also face the danger of
flash floods when water is released from the dams. Consequences : -
Riparian people suffer from diseases like diarrhea, viral
hepatitis, dysentery, typhoid, cholera and gastroenteritis. Fresh
drinking water crisis is ever aggravating. Pollutants are replacing
nutrients and natural sediments to be deposited in her plain.
Ancient Ghats of Varanasi are vulnerable owed to bad planning. A
turtle sanctuary has been established downstream of Varanasi. This
sanctuary has led to deposition of excessive silt on bank of river
which happens to be one opposite to Ghats. Flow turn abruptly in
Varanasi almost at 900. Flow resisted by excessive siltation on one
bank forces its way into other side and erode the foundation of
Ghats. This endangers very existence of Ghats.
2. YAMUNA : - The river is dead! As simple as that. With no
fresh water flows, almost negligible ecology, contaminants and
pollutants mixed with its waters, the grand old river has been
reduced to a dead waterway. The river being dirty and dead is not
the only worry anymore. This unclean, unfit Yamuna that comes to
Delhi from Haryana has contaminated the city's other source of
water, the groundwater aquifers. Pollutants, including much harsher
heavy metals, like lead and arsenic, known to cause severe health
conditions have contaminated the groundwater in the city, leaving
it unfit for consumption. The Yamuna waters are not the only source
of groundwater contamination, experts clarify, aquifers are also
fed by rains, but the river is considered a major source of
recharge. Use of pesticides, untreated sewage, effluents from
factories, residue from power plants are all contributing to make
the city's ground water unfit for consumption, experts point out.
Yet another recent study conducted by the Department of Geology at
Delhi University has pointed to the presence of arsenic in ground
water from around the Yamuna floodplains.
3. RIVERS FROM WESTERN GHATS : - Almost 400 million people
depend on peninsular rivers all emanating from Western Ghats water
tower of south India. The important rivers of Kerala include
Periyar, Bharathapuzha, Pamba, Chaliyar and Chalakudy. The major
interventions contributing to dying rivers are catchment
deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Western Ghats, dams
and diversions, sand mining, incorrect land use, pollution and
encroachments into rivers. Most rivers hover between living and
dying and there is no untouched pristine river in Kerala. According
to A Latha, Chalakudy is on the brink, Periyar is dying while
Bharathapuzha is a dead river. There has been a flow fragmentation
in the Chalakudy basin and the direct modifiers of daily and
seasonal flows (time, duration, frequency) have led to modification
in the river channel and flood plain habitats. The seventeen dams
of Periyar have led to disconnected flows. The 38 km river stretch
between Mullaperiyar to Idukki dries up during summer. Below Idukki
group of dams, the river dries up in the 30 km stretch. 1440 MCM of
water is annually diverted to Muvattupuzha. In case of
Bharathapuzha the rivers have got disconnected from flood plains
and the sediment flow changes have impacted downstream aquatic
life. River after power generation. Nirar tributary is diverted to
Tamil Nadu through Parambikulam dams part of PAP treaty.The Western
Ghats form one of the three important watersheds of India, from
which many South Indian rivers originate, such as Godavari, Bhima,
Koyna and Krishna. Maharashtra has more than eleven important west
flowing rivers including Damanganga, Surya, Vaitarna, Ulhas,
Savitri, Kundalika, Patalganga, Vashisti, Shastri, Karli, and
Terekhol. There are numerous smaller rivers joining the creeks.
West flowing rivers cover just 10 per cent of the states area but
contribute to 44.54 per cent of the 75 per cent dependable yield.
Dams under construction and proposed for Mumbai metropolitan region
are set to displace more than 25000 tribals and submerge more than
14000 hectares of primarily tribal land, including 5685 hectares
forest land in global biodiversity hotspot of Western Ghats.
4. SHASTRI: FROM LIVING TO DYING RIVERShastri, the undammed,
free flowing river of the Ghats which originates near Prachitgad,
on the crest line of the Western Ghats and meets the sea at Jaigad.
Concessional agreement for the next 50 years has been signed, with
Maharashtra Maritime Board and these ports will be operated on a
Build, Own, Operate, Share and Transfer (BOOST) basis. All these
projects have received clearances from the State Environment
Departments, Maharashtra State Coastal Zone Management Authority
and the MoEF. The EIAs did not deal with the impact of the
infrastructure on the estuarine zone or mangroves. Dredging is
being done for the ports nearly 10-12 kms inside the mouth of the
river to a depth of 14 m (which is not monitored). This sort of
dredging destroys the nutrients wholly, releases pollutants in the
water, destroys mangroves and larvae, eggs and young of fish and
crustaceans. The huge mechanized boats obstruct smallerdibkosand
tear the fish nets. Crustaceans, which are filters feeders are
hugely affected by turbidity and disturbance through dredging. It
is no wonder that shrimp catches in the estuary and also open sea
near Jaigad has fallen most sharply.
5. RIVERS OF EASTERN INDIA : - The rivers of the North East
being hidden in the Himalayas are insufficiently studied and the
value of the massive river systems emerging from the Tibetan
plateau, the water tower of Asia is yet to be fully understood. The
region with just five per cent of the countrys area has thirty per
cent of the national water resource potential and its per capita
water availability is 18,400 cubic meters as compared to the
national figure of 2,208 cubic meters.There are around 3500
wetlands along the Brahmaputra just in the Assam plains. Adjoining
wetlands provide important nursery grounds for fish and export
organic matter and organisms into the main channels. It is high
time that we recognize that rivers are not merely moving masses of
water but are in fact habitat to complex geomorphic, chemical and
biological processes in motion. These habitat mosaics support a
wide variety of aquatic and riparian species (including microbial
parts, which are hardly recognized). A rivers ecological health and
viability is its natural flow-regime. Natural variable flows create
and maintain dynamics between the channel, floodplain, wetland and
estuary. Variability is critical to ecosystem functioning and
native biodiversity. Rivers with highly altered and regulated flows
lose their ability to support natural processes. Dammed rivers are
in fact described by many as dead rivers. Water quality issues
deserve particular attention because arsenic contamination of
groundwater has been identified in the paleochannels of Brahmaputra
up till the foothills of Himalayas posing serious health
threats.The impact of global climate change would appear earlier in
this geo-environmentally vulnerable region with massive water and
sediment load. Studies indicate that a rise in surface temperatures
in the high Himalayas will lead to increased snow melt, resulting
in greater incidence of flooding in rivers flowing from the
Himalayan catchments.
RIVER RESTORATIONRiver restoration projects require a thorough
knowledge of watershed processes and their interactions, including
hydrology, hydraulics, water quality, fluvial morphology, plus the
biological sciences. In addition, developed areas must focus on
community-sensitive designs that that addresses land use,
demographics, aesthetics, recreational opportunities, public
access, historic sites, and linkages to cultural features. Specific
project types include de-channelization, removal of old dams,
creation of linear greenways and trails, in-stream habitats day
lighting enclose channels, and the clean-up of abandoned industrial
properties. Watershed Management: - Watershed management is
essential part of maintaining healthy productive rivers. The
influence of topography, soils, vegetation, land uses, run-off,
need to be considered. Stream corridors, including natural
resources such as flood plains, wet lands, most aquifers, and
riparian buffer zones are essential transition between upland areas
and water bodies. Riparian corridors have been disturbed by urban
and rural land uses, plus linear features such as highways,
railroads, and dikes that tend to follow rivers and thus isolate
riverfront areas. Important elements of urban river corridor
planning include their relationship with adjacent neighborhoods,
active recreation needs, environmental education, and habitat
linkages. The final planning level focuses on the actual streams
and river channels, plus ponds and lakes. It addresses aquatic
habitats, channel capacity and stability, fish passage, and water
quality. Dam Removal: - Old obsolete dams are needed to be removed.
Some have to be removed due to physical deterioration of ageing
structures. The impact of dams on fish movements and populations is
a major issue in coastal areas with anadromous species, as well as
in inland waters. Passage facilities, including fish ladders,
elevators, and trap and haul operations have had limited success.
After dams are breached or removed, the un-vegetated soils in their
former impoundments may need to be reshaped or landscaped to
minimize erosion. The reclaimed land may be used for wetland
habitat or parks. De-channelization:- De-channelization refers to
efforts that reverse previous channelization processes. It may
include removing deteriorated walls or linings, replanting the
river banks, reshaping the channel, providing low-flood channels
etc. Channel Day-lighting:- In extreme cases, communities have
totally enclosed watercourses and placed them underground ,
typically to regain floodplain land for developments of roads and
to control flooding. Among the benefits to opening of previously
enclosed rivers are enlarged habitat, water quality, hydraulic
capacity, recreation, fish passage, boat passage, and reduction of
expansive underground maintenance of structures. River Front
Access: - River front access are generally restricted by
water-dependent industrial uses or highways and railroads built
along river corridors. Communities are, then, left with little or
no access to rivers that stimulated the communitys early growth.
Poor access limits aesthetic opportunities, recreation and reduces
a community interest in environmental conditions. Habitat
Improvements:- Rivers that have been channelized or simply
subjected to increased flooding due to watershed changes often have
degraded aquatic habitat. Specific adverse conditions include
reduced diversity, wide, shallow channels, loss of vegetation,
limited shelter, poor water quality, rapid flow variations, high
sediment loads, and excessive velocities. Many of these channels
can be addressed by physical alteration of channels shape and form.
Flow Management:- There must be sufficient flow rates to preserve
the ecological integrity of riverine systems and water quality.
Flow rates must be sufficient to transport fine sediments, avoid
excessive deposition and periodically scour coarse substrates. This
can be achieved by reducing water demand, which in turn can be
accomplished by proper planning. Micro level water harvesting,
massive awareness programs, groundwater replenishment are some of
the ways forward.
CONCLUSIONAccording to a UN report, balance between demand and
supply of water would be disturbed after 20 years in as usual
scenario. It is established that water crisis is grave and calls
for immediate measures. Modern days notion of growth and
development needs interrogation. One has to realize there is limit
to growth and happiness associated with it. All the human
innovations and ever increasing standard of living are important
only if human race survive.
SOURCES1.
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/living-rivers-dying-rivers-rivers-north-east-india-lecture-iic-new-delhi-dr-chandan-mahanta2.
http://khabar.ndtv.com/video/show/prime-time/bhu-3184143.
http://www.dw.de/indias-polluted-ganges-river-threatens-peoples-livelihoods/a-172372764.
Handbook of Water sensitive planning and design by Robert L.
France5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8REVjjT5F46. Water Issues
and perspective by V. Iyer7. 12th five year plan , volume 1 -
GOI
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