Pollution or Depletion: What is Killing Ganga Faster?

In the last fifty years, floods have been growing more intense and droughts are more frequent.

(Photo: Aquib Raza Khan/The Quint)

In May 2016, the Ganga was so depleted at the holy site of Prayag that people were walking across the riverbed. Fast forward three months and we see the opposite extreme – record floods. Such extreme swings were rare just a few decades ago. But in the last 50 years, floods have been growing more intense and droughts more frequent.

This might seem contradictory at first glance. How can both floods and droughts increase over the same period? One reason is climate change. As we continue to emit vast quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases into the atmosphere, global warming is changing weather patterns. Compared to just a few decades ago, extremely heavy rainfall events have grown more common, leading to massive floods in our rivers. But droughts are more common too, because there are now more days with no rain at all.

Reason for Ganga’s Changed Behaviour

Climate change is a big contributing factor to this flood-drought cycle, but there is another, less obvious reason – the decrease in tree cover across the Ganga river basin. For example, deforestation in the Himalayas has been blamed for floods in the plains of India and Bangladesh. A major aspect of flood and drought therefore depends on how much rainwater percolates into the soil. What are the factors that determine this? There are quite a few, but the key aspect is the presence of trees. Tree roots keep pushing deeper and deeper into the soil, creating minute channels going from the ground into deeper layers of soil. These channels serve as conduits for rainwater to percolate into the soil.

A study in the Western Ghats found that in areas without vegetation, 80-90% of rainwater ends up in streams and rivers within a few hours of rainfall. Where there are forests, only one-third of rainwater entered rivers.

If we take this information and look at in the context of how the Ganga basin has lost 80% of its original forests, we begin to see why the Ganga is changing the way it behaves. Floods and droughts have always been a fact of life in the subcontinent, but today, they are becoming almost a norm.

If we take this information and look at in the context of how the Ganga basin has lost 80% of its original forests, we begin to see why the Ganga is changing the way it behaves. Floods and droughts have always been a fact of life in the subcontinent, but today, they are almost becoming a norm.

Depletion or Pollution: Which Is Deadlier?

The polluted banks and waters of the river Ganga at Varanasi. (Photo: Reuters)

It isn’t just the Ganga that is undergoing this change. Our once-perennial rivers are turning seasonal. Down South for example, deforestation and clearing of natural habitat has contributed to the drying of the Kaveri and its tributaries. Similar stories could be told for almost all of India’s once mighty rivers.

Pollution requires policy implementation, and can be solved within a few years if people and government work for it. But depletion can take decades to reverse.

The depletion of our rivers is often ignored in favour of the more visible pollution problem. However, depletion is far more insidious and deadly.

India is a land of 1.3 billion people. If our rivers become seasonal, our food and water security is in jeopardy. Our farmers already commit suicide in thousands every month. States are literally at each others’ throats over water sharing conflicts. Scientists have looked at various mechanisms to reverse the damage. One fundamental aspect is to bring back tree cover. Tree planting along rivers has been used across the world for a variety of benefits, such as ecosystem restoration, flood control, better water availability and prevention of soil erosion.

But in India, a country with almost 400 people per square kilometre, forests may be out of the question, but tree-planting is still possible in the fifty percent of India’s land covered by farms. Most of our rivers are bordered by agricultural land, and since they cover almost every inch of fertile area in the country, farms are a prime candidate for tree planting. The only impetus needed is to develop a farming model that allows farmers to financially benefit from trees.

Need to Shift towards Tree-Based Agriculture

India needs to work out some kind of agricultural models that allow farmers to shift to tree-based agriculture from conventional crops. We also need to put together various marketing mechanisms that tap into the demand for high-value produce such as fruits, timber and medicinal products, which will allow farmers to make good profit from this mode of farming.

Organic farming can provide a way to eliminate fertiliser and pesticide costs.

And by encouraging farmers for micro-irrigation, water consumption in agriculture will be more than halved. This will be crucial for the health of our rivers, considering that irrigation– mostly the flood irrigation kind – currently consumes eighty-four percent ofour water.

The ecological and economical aspects of this method have been fine-tuned for various situations through small-scale models in Tamil Nadu, and large scale demonstrations in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Responsibilities and Role of Government and Corporate Sector

The government can provide a few subsidies and infrastructural support, only the corporate sector is in a position to pour in huge volumes of money and ensure that it reaches fruition. Companies have many options to invest in the agricultural sector. Agri-produce or food processing companies could finance farmers to shift to tree-based agriculture, in exchange for a commitment to supply products such as fruits, timber etc.

Companies could invest in irrigation infrastructure and relieve the farmer of the burden of debt, instead taking a fixed fee for the water supplied. Companies could even finance farmers with venture capital.

This will protect the farmer from having to pay up in case of failure, as would happen if they took loans. At the same time, the company has the opportunity of sharing in the huge profits in case of success.

The Indian government has already created the necessary policy framework by creating Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO). These entities are formed under the Indian Company Act, but with the crucial difference that only farmers can be shareholders and board members. These are similar to cooperatives such as Amul. However, unlike cooperatives, the government cannot take a seat on the board. This protects FPOs from government influence and meddling.

Thus, it is only through a joint effort between people, enterprises and government that our life-sustaining rivers can flow once again as they did in the past.

(The author is a Gangtok-based journalist.)