Isro and water ministry to study river changes

In a major initiative, the Union ministry of Water Resources has decided to launch a comprehensive study involving India's 12 big and critical rivers including Ganga and Brahmaputra to understand major changes in them over a period of time including changes like erosion of river banks. The study would be carried out with the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The main aim of the study is to understand the river behaviour and changes a river undergoes every year or after regular intervals.

The decision comes in wake of recent tragedies in the country where flooding of rivers led to huge devastation like the one in Jammu and Kashmir as a result of flooding of Jhelum river or incidents in past few years like flooding of Kosi river. Both the incidents resulted in damage worth hundreds of crores of rupees and resulted in death of dozens.

"The study is being jointly launched by water resources ministry and ISRO. All the major rivers of the country will be studied under this programme including Ganga and Brahmaputra," a senior official of the ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation told dna.

Other rivers which are expected to be covered under this programme are Jhelum, Satluj, Yamuna, Narmada, Kaveri, Mahanadi, Kosi, and others.

"The objective of the study is to understand the morphological changes in these rivers. It would help us in understanding the river behaviour and changes it experience on routine basis. It would thus enable us to manage the river and those changes that occur every year or on routine intervals," said the senior official.

"River development is part of our ministry's mandate and this programme is exactly that. Only Ghat development is not the work under river development," the official added.

Collaboration between ISRO and water ministry was a result of prime minister Narendra Modi's suggestion to the central government ministries regarding to increase their "use of space technology" in their routine governance and development work. A recent meeting had thus taken place in the union cabinet secretariat where ISRO and MoWR jointly outlined their vision and the latter outline areas where space technology could be utilised.

Another official of the water ministry said that rivers are hundreds of kilometres long and thus physically monitoring every part of it is not possible.

"For this study, we would use satellites to monitor rivers in all seasons - mainly pre-monsoon, monsoon and post monsoon – to understand the extent of change those river undergoes at various places. The study is expected to take a couple of years. But once finished it would help us in ascertaining the extent of changes - like erosion – the rivers undergo and the locations at which such changes occurs," the senior officer explained.

"Once armed with such knowledge we would be able to then take corrective actions and pre-emptive measures to address any untoward or dangerous situation that is expected to arise," the water ministry official added.