Indian rivers: Necessity for River Heath Assessment (RHA)

Kalinga Plus Article: Jan-June 2024

Dr. Sohini Bhattacharyya

Department of Zoology

Rivers are the backbone of any civilization. These flowing ecosystems have multiple important roles to play. They support irrigation, provide potable water, act as passageway for ferrying people and cargo, nourishing humans with products like fish, and providing habitat to various aquatic plants and animals along with supporting microbial communities and their associated ecosystem functioning. Rivers are also major hubs for nutrient biogeochemistry, sediment transport and energy exchange. However, the Anthropocene era has substantially deteriorated the “health” of several ecosystems including the riverine ones.

Indian territory accommodates multiple major rivers of which quite a few are perennial ones. Major rivers of northern India include Ganges, Yamuna, Beas, Indus, Brahmaputra, etc. while Mahanadi, Godavari, Kaveri, Krishna, Narmada, etc. are few of the dominant ones in the southern part of the country. These major rivers have been nourishing the country since ages, however, currently the plight of most of them reveals the adverse effects of anthropogenic activities. For example, many of the glacier fed rivers show extensive drying during summer months due to global climate change which impacts adjacent livelihood. River health assessment (RHA) is a protocol to understand the current state of the river ecosystems and plan for mitigation actions. RHA involves various factors like biota health, concentration of pollutants, flow health, phytoplankton abundance and diversity, trophic state, condition of the riparian/flood plain region, etc. This kind of consistent monitoring identifies the persistent problem and its level. Once identified mitigation and restoration measures can be implemented. Few of such plans taken for Indian rivers were The Ganga Action Plans (which were inclusive of its tributaries and adjacent rivers), “Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan”, and ones that were focused on Godavari, Chenab and Kosi. Such efforts not only emphasize improving the water quality but also assess the assemblages of fish and benthic macroinvertebrates. These kind of evaluation checks are necessary to understand the functioning of the riverine bodies which serve as “Lifeline” to the landmass.

References:

Singh, D.S. ed., 2017. The Indian rivers: Scientific and socio-economic aspects. Springer.

Nandi, I., Tewari, A. and Shah, K., 2016. Evolving human dimensions and the need for continuous health assessment of Indian rivers. Current Science, pp.263-271.

Dey, S. and Majumdar, A., 2024. Current Status of Pollution in Major Rivers and Tributaries of India and Protection-Restoration Strategies. In Rivers of India: Past, Present and Future (pp. 69-93). Cham: Springer International Publishing.