Impacts of the Indian Rivers Inter-link Project on Sediment Transport to River Deltas

Abstract:

The Indian Rivers Inter-link project is a proposal by the Indian government to link several of India's major rivers via a network of reservoirs and canals. Variations of the IRI have been discussed since 1980, but the current plan has recently received increased support from the Indian government. Construction on three canals has controversially begun. If the Inter-link project moves forward, fourteen canals will divert water from tributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers to areas in the west, where fresh water is needed for irrigation. Additional canals would transport Himalayan sediments 500 km south to the Mahanadi delta and more than 1000 km south to the Godavari and Krishna deltas.

We investigate the impacts of the proposed diversions on sediment transport to the Mahanadi/Brahmani, Godavari, and Krishna deltas in India and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh. We map the entire river network and the proposed new nodes and connections. Changing watersheds are delineated using the Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models (TauDEM) Suite. Climate data comes from interpolation between observed precipitation stations located in China, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Changes in water discharge due to the proposed canals are simulated using HydroTrend, a climate-driven hydrological water balance and transport model that incorporates drainage area, discharge, relief, temperature, basin-average lithology, and anthropogenic influences. Simulated river discharge is validated against observations from gauging stations archived by the Global Runoff Data Center (GRDC). HydroTrend is then used to investigate sediment transport changes that may result from the proposed canals. We also quantify changes in contributing areas for the outlets of nine major Indian rivers, showing that more than 50% of the land in India will contribute a portion of its runoff to a new outlet should the entire canal system be constructed.