River: Ganges

The opportunities it provides:

• Water supply for cleaning , bathing, drinking and irrigating

• Fertile Land- annual deposits of alluvial from flooding

• Fish supply for trade and food-

• Agriculture of rice and jute- 6th largest producer of rice

Hazards

• Regular industrial pollution

• There are some 30 cities, along the banks of the Ganga. Nearly all of the sewage from these population centers – over 1.3 billion litres per day – passes directly into the river,

• Flooding-due to human and natural consequences

• Agriculture pollution

River Ganga is 2525km long and 17 m dee

• True

• False

Human causes of flooding

• Urbanisation - decreases infiltration causing increased surface run off.

• Deforestation - reduces interception and increases surface run off , causing floods

• Poorly maintained flood defences

• Creation of dams

Physical causes of flooding

• Global warming- snow melts in the Himalayas causing sea levels to rise and causing floods

• Cyclones hit Bangladesh from the Bay of Bengal causing storm surges

• 70% of Bangladesh lives on land that is less than 1m above sea level.

• The south of India is one big floodplain (low lying area)

✓

Short term management :

• Flood warning systems were developed

• Tents and blankets were provided for the homeless

• Boats are used to rescue people

• Emergency water and food supplies distributed

Long term management

• Reduce the rate of deforestation in the Himalayas

• 5000 flood shelters were built

• 7 Dams were built- costing $40 million , one of them was the Tehri Dam

• 350 km of levees were built

Impacts of flooding:

• Water Contamination

• Diseases like Typhoid were spread

• Tonnes of rice lost

• People are killed

The impacts of river flooding in Bangladesh in 1998 

• physical impacts

         670,000 hectares if crops destroyed

           2 million tonnes of rice destroyed 

• social impacts

   1000 killed and 30 million refugees

• social impacts

  2 million tonnes of rice destroyed 

• economic impacts

  $1 billion of damage

  400 factories closed

The river flows through ......

• Tibet

• India

• Bangladesh

• Pakistan