Ganga river bank erosion is one of the burning issues in the lower stream of Ganga. That causes displacement of thousands of inhabitants each year. Till date, various steps have been taken up for erosion control but the erosion and degradation still continues.
Experts suggested that the only permanent solution under the existing river flow condition is to decrease water pressure from the left bank to divert flow from eroding channel.
I would like to ask experts from this community, are there any other solutions for reducing the river bank erosion? Has anyone worked on this issue?
I consider it lack of vision on part of the Governments for not putting proven technologies to work to arrest the erosion of soil and free passage allowed to river waters take away soils and dump the same into sea/oceans.
A. Without having to stop flows in rivers, CONCRETE REVETMENT of design thickness and the design heights along the river embankments is easily possible to train the rivers.
B. If the real value of SOIL and MINERALS carried by flows of river is understood and if it is logical that this precious soil serves as top cover in fields across the flood plains or is even transported to areas where required to support better cultivation, it is technologically possible.
Projects have to be designed at appropriate locations where manmade widening of river flow is attempted to reduce the velocity of flows so that suspended solids settle down on river bed and are pumped out by dredgers or is excavated during lean seasons and transported to designated areas. It can also be utilised to raise the embankments of reservoirs.
combnation of vetivier and a forest zone might be a solution. but it has to be considered that the main stream of a river is difficult to steer, Flooding can be reduced. Vetivier and forest are building up their own height by sedimentation. a wide enough buffer zone from the river is needed to allow the needed discharge
I like to support the information from Florence Cattin about the Vetiver System for river bank protecion! Here in Latin America in countries like Columbia, Brasil, Peru, etc.. we have good results with the Vetiver System. Here an information in Spanish from Peru - www.vetiverperu.org
Greetings, yes there is a solution, planting the banks with Vetiver zizanoides, very cheap and effective. Is being increasingly used along freeways also and other public works as works much better than concrete walls for example.
The only tricky thing is that because it's such a great weaving material it may get stolen a lot, but that could be prevented by different means. For the Vetiver see: http://www.vetiver.org/
River training to maintain the longitudinal profile through out the channel will really address the issue. Simply focusing at the location with groynes will put pressure on other side of the river bank. This process will lead to more oscillation of sediment laden flow resulting in more unstable banks of the river. Non-structural methods of maintaining depth of flow will be really fruitful.
Hi Abir, The Department of Agriculture in the Western Cape (South Africa) use groynes as a river training structure rather than longitudinal structure for reasons given in the paper attached (focusing of high flow velocity channel away from bank, creating spaces between structures which are re-vegetated to enhance bio-diversity and improve sustainability of solution)
I think we should follow the integrated approach for river bank erosion mitigation like rejuvenation of natural stream of the river catchment, afforestation, redevelopment of degraded slope etc.