Ghaghara River System—Its Current Status and Value to Society

Ghaghara River is a tributary of Ganga River. This river originates near Lake Mansarovar in Tibetan Plateau. It joins the Sharda River in India at Brahma Ghat after travelling through the Himalayas in Nepal. The origin of Ghaghara River lies in the glaciers of Mapchachungo near Mansarovar Lake at an elevation of 4800 m. The Ghaghara River has a catchment of 127,950 km². Spread over India and Nepal, out of which about 55% lies in Nepal and remaining 45% lies in India. Average annual water yield due to the rainfall in Ghaghara basin for River Ghaghara is reported to be 94,400 million m. The ground water level data of the Ghaghara basin districts reveals that range of ground water level is from 0.91 to 8.58 m bgl in pre-monsoon and 0.4–7.46 m bgl in post-monsoon season. The Ghaghara plains are underlain by thick loose alluvial sediments deposited by the River Ghaghara and its tributaries. The surface slopes towards south-eastwards except near river banks. Geomorphologically, the region exhibits upland terrace surface, river valley terrace surface, present-day river channel with narrow flood plains, natural levee, and point-bar deposits. All these geomorphic features are made up of alluvium of different ages and depositional in nature. The irrigation in the Ghaghara basin is provided by the Sarada, Sarada-Sahayak, and the Saryu canal systems. In general, entire Ghaghara basin is affected by floods, but Gorakhpur, Deoria, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Siddhartha Nagar, Mau, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Azamgarh, Ballia, Gonda, Bahraich districts are more prone to floods. The severity of floods along Ghaghara may be understood by the fact that length of marginal embankments along Ghaghara is about 586.77 km. The Ghaghara basin at present although does not experience any major global environmental issues such as ozone depletion, global warming, and acid rains. However, due to increased demand for resources; changing land-use patterns, load on air, water and land; rapid urbanization; migration to urban areas; Increased and concentrated generation of pollution and wastes; greater need and attention on increasing industrial and agricultural productivity could marginalize environmental priorities of the basin.