Cataclysmic Morpho Dynamics of the Lower Damodar River Basin, India

Abstract

Damodar Valley Rivers, the Sorrow of Bengal is a tributary to the Hooghly River but the storehouse of Coal. This river is the lifeline of about 2.2millions people in West Bengal though it emerges from Jharkhand state, India. The valley has been constantly under threat at its lower reaches from devastating floods, poor water quality, inundation and loss of ecology and forests. The present search is to find the causes for regular submerges, sedimentation of reservoirs and planning for a solution to the gaps and spaces though numerous works are done over the basin. The Arc GIS /RS software has been applied by constructing basin, slope, watershed, and land use and land cover map of the Damodar Valley from its satellite imagery. The post-independent dam structures are old, reservoirs are silted up, the river/canal section shrank and the direct efflux of effluent to rivers has transformed the valley topology added by anthropogenic, political, social and economic strategies. The analysis exhibits that the water of the river in summer is not health-impacting. The continuous sedimentation of reservoirs, urbanisation and Industrialisation have reduced the storage volume resulting in the depletion of the culturable command area, energy generation and forest coverage and intensification. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) which was not considered in the 1950’s should be adopted with Real-Time Data Acquisition System (RTDAS) and Real-Time Decision Support System (RTDSS), the Dam Rehabilitation & Improvement Project (DRIP) with the construction of new dams and building up new dams with rehabilitation and renovation of canals and silted up drainage channels.