400,000 MAY BE DISPLACED The environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project says 276 villages will be affected; an estimated 177,275 people live in these villages. The Polavaram Project Environmental Impact Appraisal Report of 1985 expected 150,697 people to be displaced in 226 villages. But the population of these villages …
On February 26, as night fell on the tranquil Gahirmatha beach in Odisha, thousands of Olive Ridley turtles crawled in. Using their rear flippers, they dug pits in the soft beach sand and started laying eggs, more than 100 at a time. Then they skilfully covered the nests with sand …
AMID predictions by climate scientists that half the coastal marshes may not survive rising sea level, comes a glimmer of hope. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters in December says vegetated wetlands with high tidal ranges—remaining flooded for longer periods—and sediment concentration may survive sea level rise. The researchers …
FOR the past five years Hyderabad has been trying to clean the Hussain Sagar Lake, separating the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh. The efforts suffered yet another blow on June 20 when the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) denied permission to dredge the mouths of …
Victims of the 2008 Kosi flood in Bihar are awaiting compensation. They cannot farm because their land is full of fine silt. Officials in the flood-affected districts say villagers complain because they don’t understand the formalities—they need to furnish a first information report (fir) and death certificate to claim compensation. …
The comparative assessment of morphologic runoff and annual silt load from micro-watersheds can help in establishing relationships between these parameters with objectives of controlling runoff, conservation of soil, reduction of reservoir silt load and enhanced groundwater resources in the micro-watersheds. The automated watershed delineation technique using the filled digital elevation …
Heavy metal (Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni ) concentration in water sediments and fish was analysed from Madivala lake in the month of June 2008. There was an appreciable increase in metal concentrations in going from the water to the sediment samples.The Heavy metal concentration, in water was in the order …
The breach of the Kosi embankment in Nepal in August 2008 marked the failure of conventional ways of controlling floods. After discussing the physical characteristics of the Kosi River and the Kosi barrage project, this paper suggests that the high sediment content of the Kosi River implies a major risk …
In the Himalayan terrain, the Kosi river is formed by the confluence of seven smaller streams, viz. Indravati, Sun Kosi, Tama Kosi, Likhu Kosi, Dudh Kosi, Arun Kosi and Tamar Kosi at different places in China, Tibet and Nepal, before its entry into the Indian state of Bihar. The Kosi …
The recent Kosi megaflood, caused by a breach in the Kosi embankment in Nepal on August 18, 2008 and a sudden change in the course of the Kosi River, was one of the most significant and damaging flood events ever to hit Bihar. The Kosi disaster also ranks as one …
Desiccation of the Sahara since the middle Holocene has eradicated all but a few natural archives recording its transition from a "green Sahara" to the present hyperarid desert. Our continuous 6000-year paleoenvironmental reconstruction from northern Chad shows progressive drying of the regional terrestrial ecosystem in response to weakening insolation forcing …
With creationists arguing over its formation, and lengthy disputes over land rights, the Grand Canyon has often been the focus of controversy. Now a row has broken out just days before the start of an experiment designed to repair environmental damage to the area.
Any reduction in water spread area at a specified elevation over a time period is indicative of sediment deposition at this level. This when integrated over a range of water stages helps in computing volume of storage lost through sedimentation. This study relates to estimation of capacity loss due to …
