Published by Nripendra Sarma, PHED, Government of Assam, India in Social
What are the considered indicators in evaluation of the successfulness of the Ganges clean up program?
Which is the best way the water professionals can help the Mission?
Category: Social
There are lot of indicators for good health of any river. Some of the ecological and social. The social come with responsibility of the people on banks of Holy River Ganga. We should understand that the rivers are not for dumping garbage or discharging human/ industrial waste for any reason. the other one is as important as social which indicate the ecological health of the river, which can be reinstate by improving the water quality by not discharging the waste in rivers.
we should focus on the wastewater treatments of the drains/ nala/industrial discharge before entering to river water. The diversion of drain to effluent treatment plants is one of the solution in improvement of clean Ganga.
Published by Alok Suman, FIE, Research Scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia
It would definitely need a mix of physical and social indicators. Cleaning up the river - physically, chemically and biologically - could be done through tough regulatory - authoritarian - measures, but longer term this could be counter-productive if this leads to such resentment, push back and resentment from riparian land owners/occupiers that such enforcement has to be abandoned. Therefore restoring civic pride in a river has to be central - through festivals, cultural events, high quality public spaces. Perhaps another indicator is around solid waste management - targetting the reduction of intentional dumping of household and commercial waste through incentivising the use of better/more convenient alternatives.
Published by Sean Furey, Water & Sanitation Specialist at Skat Consulting
I would like to primarily focus on the chemical and physical indicators. It is critical that we primarily focus on parameters which are easy to measure. This would essentially be the 'first line of defence'. If the preliminary indicators indicate values which are not quite acceptable, these would act as the trigger that something is wrong and that remedial action is needed.
Accordingly, for physical indicators, I would suggest as preliminary parameters, turbidity, electrical conductivity and suspeneded solids. For chemical indicators, I would suggest pH, total organic carbon and either biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) or chemical oxygen demand (COD).
Water professionals can contribute significantly to this process. We could help to develop relationships between these parameters and those which are more cdifficult to measure parameter. Essentially, these preliminary parameters would act as surrogates to assess other parameters. This approach would result in significant time and cost savings.
Published by Ashantha Goonetilleke, Professor, Water/Environmental Engineering at Queensland University of Technology
There are some indicators of good health of a river. These are ecological and social.. The social indicators show that the people on both banks of ganga are not discharging waste into the river even for religious reason.. It is an indicator of social concern for the health of the river. One of the most prominent ecological indicators is the restoration of riparian zone of the river unhampered by human intervention.
Published by Pradip Kumar Sengupta, Author, Consultant on Water Resource Management, EIA Consultant on GEO, HG, NABET accredited
Following could be some of the key indicators in the evaluation of Clean Ganga Project:
a) Number of ETPs and STPs set up along the Ganga under the proposed Clean Ganga Project;
b) Reduction in the incidence of water borne diseases and the decline in the resulting mortality rates;
c) Log of water quality parameters at the treatment plants after setting up of the Clean Ganga Project;
d) Log of water quality parameters in the River and the Irrigation Canals that take off from Ganga; and
e) Water Consumption figures at the power plants in the basin.
Published by K.R.T Achar, Self owned - Consultant - Water & Water Resources