A study of erosion-deposition processes around Majuli Island, Assam
Majuli, the largest inhabited river island bounded by the river Subansiri to the north and mighty Brahmaputra River to the south, is one of the subdivisions of the Jorhat district, Assam. Erosion of the island is a continuous process since historical times and posses a significant concern. The present approach have been made to study the erosion-deposition processes with the help of data resource generated from the Survey of India (SOI) toposheets and Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite imagery spanning the period from 1966-1975 to 2008 in a Geographical Information System (GIS) environment. The observation has revealed a dramatic change in reduction of land area of the Majuli Island. The land area as evidenced till 1966-1975, 1998 and 2008 were 706.14, 578.38 and 484.34km2 respectively. The total average annual rate of erosion and deposition covering the entire period were 8.76 km2 /yr and 1.87 km2 /yr. It can clearly be attributed that the island mass suffered significant rate of erosion than the depositional processes.