Causes, cures of drying rivers discussed on environment day
‘India is the world’s biggest consumer of groundwater but how can we not see perennial rivers turning seasonal gradually’
LUCKNOW: “In India, rivers are flooding, and ponds are dry which makes understanding different flow types of each river important. India is the world’s biggest consumer of groundwater but how can we not see perennial rivers turning seasonal gradually,” said Venkatesh Dutta, professor, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, who is also known as the Water Man.
Dutta was speaking as guest speaker at an event titled ‘Beat the plastic pollution’ which was held on Monday, World Environment Day, by CSIR- National Botanical Research Institute of Lucknow.
“Many rivers of India are becoming seasonal from perennial. The connectivity of groundwater with the river is being broken by concrete structures. There is a massive volumetric loss of groundwater which is running our rivers dry,” he said.
Dutta also mentioned some ways through which a river can be restored. “During our ongoing restoration of rivers, we have stressed on phase-wise work with three steps in the first phase: (i) identification and marking of encroachment on the two kilometer-buffer on both sides of the river(s) on the drainage map using revenue/cadastral maps (ii) identification of the critical stretch which needs immediate attention such as channel obstruction, channel fragmentation, etc. (iii) marking of origin points of a river/stream as well as confluence points in the respective districts for special conservation zoning/priorities,” he said.
To understand the problem of the river ecosystem is essential. He also mentioned Ganga as a human body of Adi- Shiva and the creation and eruption of Himalayas.
“Shiva’s locks are forests and vegetation on the Himalayas and his head is the Himalayas itself. So, a river is a living human body,” he added.
He addressed the issue of 300 million tonnes of microplastic as a threat to our country.
The chief guest and former director of NBRI, PV Sane also expressed his views on the actions being taken by the government of India to mitigate plastic across the country. He thanked the chief secretary of UP for implementing a ban on single-use plastic.
Poojaben Thakkar
