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Ganges : the many pasts of an Indian River
Originating in the Himalayas and flowing into the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges is India's most important and sacred river. In this unprecedented work, historian Sudipta Sen tells the story of the Ganges, from the communities that arose on its banks to the merchants that navigated its waters, and the way it came to occupy center stage in the history and culture of the subcontinent. Sen begins his chronicle in prehistoric India, tracing the river's first settlers, its myths of origin in the Hindu tradition, and its significance during the ascendancy of popular Buddhism. In the following centuries, Indian empires, Central Asian regimes, European merchants, the British Empire, and the Indian nation-state all shaped the identity and ecology of the river. Weaving together geography, environmental politics, and religious history, Sen offers in this lavishly illustrated volume a remarkable portrait of one of the world's largest and most densely populated river basins.
Book
Dirty, sacred rivers : confronting South Asia's water crisis
Rivers have traditionally been revered by the people of the Indian subcontinent, though in recent decades, the region's rivers have deteriorated dramatically due to economic progress and gross mismanagement. Dams and ill-advised embankments strangle the Ganges and its sacred tributaries. Rivers have become sewage channels for a burgeoning population. Dirty, Sacred Rivers explores South Asia's looming water crisis, tracing a journey through the vast watershed of the Ganges, one of the great rivers of South Asia and to many people the holiest. To tell the story of this river basin, Cheryl Colopy treks to high mountain glaciers with hydrologists; bumps around the rough embankments of India's poorest state in a jeep with social workers; and takes a boat excursion through the Sundarbans, the mangrove forests at the end of the Ganges watershed. She lingers in key places and hot spots in the debate over water: Delhi--a megacity on the banks of one the Ganges' most revered tributaries, the Yamuna-and a paradigm of water mismanagement. Bihar, where the Buddha gained enlightenment. It's now India's poorest, most crime-ridden state, thanks largely to the blunders of engineers who tried to tame powerful Himalayan rivers with embankments but instead created annual floods. Kathmandu--the home of one of the most elegant and ancient traditional water systems on the subcontinent, now the site of a water development boondoggle. The Nepal Himalaya, whose sweeping glaciers are starting to melt, threatening villagers in the high mountains. A first-person narrative holds together disparate places and issues. The reader meets a cast of characters, ranging from the most humble members of South Asian society to engineers and former ministers. Some of these men and women are heroes, bucking current trends, trying to find rational ways to manage rivers and water. They are reviving ingenious methods of water management that thrived for centuries in South Asia and may point the way to water sustainability and healthy rivers.
eBook
Ganga rejuvenation : governance challenges and policy options
\"This book focuses on governance and management issues in the much publicized 'Ganga Rejuvenation Project', led by the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. Attempts over the past three decades to clean up and rejuvenate one of the world's greatest rivers have proved futile. The major reasons for the lack of success are absence of long-term planning, poor co-ordination and failure to sustain whatever little infrastructure for water and sewage treatment could be developed. Focusing on these broad aspects, the book explores spaces for better governance through active community participation, knowledge management, prospects of Public-Private-Partnership, e-governance, youth education, waterfront development, lessons from past failures, comparative international analogies, utilization of external aid and global expertise in successful implementation of a sustainable long-term plan for a river basin's integrated development of both the economy and environment. A host of activities, such as, improving pollution monitoring systems, new development plans for tourism enhancement; river dredging and sewering riparian cities are already being carried in the hope of quick results. The Government of India has also appointed a task force for preparation of a long-term strategy. However, substantial knowledge gaps persist especially with regard to governance. This book aims to address the governance and policy issues and will be a very timely contribution to cleaning as well as rejuvenating Ganga, a river that is lifeline of millions of people.\"--Back cover.
Book
Dancing with the river : people and life on the Chars of South Asia
An intimate glimpse into the microcosmic world of \"hybrid landscapes\" and their inhabitants. With this book, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Gopa Samanta offer an intimate glimpse into the microcosmic world of \"hybrid environments.\" Focusing on chars -- the part-land, part-water, low-lying sandy masses that exist within the riverbeds in the floodplains of lower Bengal -- the authors show how, both as real-life examples and as metaphors, chars straddle the conventional categories of land and water, and how people who live on them fluctuate between legitimacy and illegitimacy. The result, a study of human habitation in the nebulous space between land and water, charts a new way of thinking about land, people, and people's ways of life. Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt is a senior fellow in resource management in the Asia-Pacific Program at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She lives in Canberra. Gopa Samanta is an associate professor in geography at the University of Burdwan. She lives in Golapbag, Burdwan, India.
eBook
My incredible India
\"Journey across the diverse regions of India in this joyful celebration of its people, places, and wildlife. Watch elephants bathing from a houseboat in Kerala, marvel at the ancient cave paintings of Bhimbetka, wander the bustling streets of Delhi, and ride a train through the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. Uncover India's fascinating history and culture, and explore the unique mix of the traditional and modern that makes India the incredible country it is today\"-- Page 4 of cover.
BOOK
Global extreme precipitation characteristics: the perspective of climate and large river basins
With global warming, extreme weather frequently and severely appears globally. Extreme precipitation is one of the extreme weather events that can cause many natural disasters, such as floods and waterlogging. In this study, Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) daily precipitation data were used to investigate extreme precipitation and its contribution to annual precipitation in different global climate regions and typical river basins. The climate types included equatorial climates (EC), arid climates (AC), warm temperate climates (WTC), snowy climates (SC) and polar climates (PC). R99p, Rx5day, CWD and R20 was selected as extreme precipitation indices in this study; extreme precipitation days were defined by CWD and R20. The results showed that EC and WTC had higher extreme precipitation level; SC and PC had lower extreme precipitation amounts and days than AC. R99p, Rx5day and CWD monitored higher extreme precipitation contribution degrees in AC; however, R20 monitored higher contribution degrees in EC and WTC. R99p, Rx5day and CWD showed higher extreme precipitation contribution degrees in North Africa, the Middle East, Australia and northwestern China; R20 showed higher contribution degrees in South America, the southeastern United States and South Asia. Based on historical observational data, Heilongjiang Basin (HB), Yellow River Basin (YERB), Yangtze River Basin (YARB), Ganges River Basin (GRB), Danube River Basin (DRB) and Mekong River Basin (MERB) had high-frequency extreme precipitation in summer. The research results are helpful for understanding the characteristics of extreme precipitation and provide a reference for flood control and disaster reduction in different climatic regions and main river basins.
Journal Article
South Asian river basins in a 1.5 °C warmer world
In 2015, with the signing of the “Paris Agreement”, 195 countries committed to limiting the increase in global temperature to less than 2 °C with respect to pre-industrial levels and to aim at limiting the increase to 1.5 °C by 2100. The regional ramifications of those thresholds remain however largely unknown and variability in the magnitude of change and the associated impacts are yet to be quantified. We provide a regional quantitative assessment of the impacts of a 1.5 versus a 2 °C global warming for a major global climate change hotspot: the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra river basins (IGB) in South Asia, by analyzing changes in climate change indicators based on 1.5 and 2 °C global warming scenarios. In the analyzed ensemble of general circulation models, a global temperature increase of 1.5 °C implies a temperature increase of 1.4–2.6 (μ = 2.1) °C for the IGB. For the 2.0 °C scenario, the increase would be 2.0–3.4 (μ = 2.7) °C. We show that climate change impacts are more adverse under 2 °C versus 1.5 °C warming and that changes in the indicators’ values are in general linearly correlated to average temperature increase. We also show that for climate projections following Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5, which may be more realistic, the regional temperature increases and changes in climate change indicators are much stronger than for the 1.5 and 2 °C scenarios.
Journal Article
Implications for planning of hydroelectric projects in Northeast India
In recent years, while developed countries are decommissioning hydroelectric projects (HEPs)/-dams at a higher rate than constructing new ones, developing economies are doing the opposite. Although HEPs are regarded green, renewable and cheap, recent studies reveal that they do more harm than good. The impacts of HEPs are multiple, including socio-economic, environmental and geopolitical. India’s Northeastern (NE) region is a part of the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna river basin, and has immense hydropower potential. A large number of HEPs are planned or under construction in the region, mainly in the hilly states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Mizoram. One such mega project is the Tipaimukh multipurpose HEP, to be constructed on the Barak river in the state of Manipur. The project is highly controversial, and is being protested against by the locals, academicians, researchers, social activists, NGOs, as well as Bangladesh. Further, a serious cost–benefit analysis, judicious environmental impact assessment and democratic public hearings have been questioned. The area submergence of the project is disproportionately high compared to other such projects of NE India, and the project site and the adjoining areas form a part of Indo-Burma global biodiversity hotspot. The present study details the impacts of the project from multidisciplinary perspectives, categorized into bio-physical, socio-economic and geopolitical impacts, including impacts on the downstream riparian nation—Bangladesh. Based on the study, we have provided recommendations, if ever the construction of project is actualized. Since there is lack of any such analysis, the present study is of immense significance on the decision making of the project, and paves a guideline for impact analysis of the upcoming large number of projects of the region.
Journal Article
River flow forecasting with artificial neural networks using satellite observed precipitation pre-processed with flow length and travel time information: case study of the Ganges river basin
This paper explores the use of flow length and travel time as a pre-processing step for incorporating spatial precipitation information into Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models used for river flow forecasting. Spatially distributed precipitation is commonly required when modelling large basins, and it is usually incorporated in distributed physically-based hydrological modelling approaches. However, these modelling approaches are recognised to be quite complex and expensive, especially due to the data collection of multiple inputs and parameters, which vary in space and time. On the other hand, ANN models for flow forecasting are frequently developed only with precipitation and discharge as inputs, usually without taking into consideration the spatial variability of precipitation. Full inclusion of spatially distributed inputs into ANN models still leads to a complex computational process that may not give acceptable results. Therefore, here we present an analysis of the flow length and travel time as a basis for pre-processing remotely sensed (satellite) rainfall data. This pre-processed rainfall is used together with local stream flow measurements of previous days as input to ANN models. The case study for this modelling approach is the Ganges river basin. A comparative analysis of multiple ANN models with different hydrological pre-processing is presented. The ANN showed its ability to forecast discharges 3-days ahead with an acceptable accuracy. Within this forecast horizon, the influence of the pre-processed rainfall is marginal, because of dominant influence of strongly auto-correlated discharge inputs. For forecast horizons of 7 to 10 days, the influence of the pre-processed rainfall is noticeable, although the overall model performance deteriorates. The incorporation of remote sensing data of spatially distributed precipitation information as pre-processing step showed to be a promising alternative for the setting-up of ANN models for river flow forecasting.
Journal Article
A Framework for Multivariate Analysis of Land Surface Dynamics and Driving Variables—A Case Study for Indo-Gangetic River Basins
The analysis of the Earth system and interactions among its spheres is increasingly important to improve the understanding of global environmental change. In this regard, Earth observation (EO) is a valuable tool for monitoring of long term changes over the land surface and its features. Although investigations commonly study environmental change by means of a single EO-based land surface variable, a joint exploitation of multivariate land surface variables covering several spheres is still rarely performed. In this regard, we present a novel methodological framework for both, the automated processing of multisource time series to generate a unified multivariate feature space, as well as the application of statistical time series analysis techniques to quantify land surface change and driving variables. In particular, we unify multivariate time series over the last two decades including vegetation greenness, surface water area, snow cover area, and climatic, as well as hydrological variables. Furthermore, the statistical time series analyses include quantification of trends, changes in seasonality, and evaluation of drivers using the recently proposed causal discovery algorithm Peter and Clark Momentary Conditional Independence (PCMCI). We demonstrate the functionality of our methodological framework using Indo-Gangetic river basins in South Asia as a case study. The time series analyses reveal increasing trends in vegetation greenness being largely dependent on water availability, decreasing trends in snow cover area being mostly negatively coupled to temperature, and trends of surface water area to be spatially heterogeneous and linked to various driving variables. Overall, the obtained results highlight the value and suitability of this methodological framework with respect to global climate change research, enabling multivariate time series preparation, derivation of detailed information on significant trends and seasonality, as well as detection of causal links with minimal user intervention. This study is the first to use multivariate time series including several EO-based variables to analyze land surface dynamics over the last two decades using the causal discovery algorithm PCMCI.
Journal Article