Ganges River Restoration: A Basin-Wide Approach
A project aimed to restore the health of India's holy river
Background
The Ganges River is considered a holy river by many of the 520 million people living within the basin. The river has significant cultural, spiritual, and religious meaning. The origin of the river is located in the Himalayan Mountains and receives glacial melt from the Gongotri glacier. Nutrient-dense soils are transported by the flow of the river and deposited along the shores, supporting communities along the river ( UN Decade on Restoration, 2022) .
The river runs through populated areas of India and provides drinking water, fishing opportunities, bathing water, and agricultural water use. However, water quality has deteriorated due to industrial pollution, land degradation, agricultural runoff, and untreated sewage. Water quality monitoring shows high levels of heavy metals, nutrients, and fecal bacteria (Simon & Joshi, 2022). The Indian government started a project called Namami Gange in 2014 to restore water quality and people's connections to the river (NMCG, n.d.).
Restoration Approach
Pollution reduction is the main restoration goal for the Ganges River with other objectives including flow maintenance, rural sanitation, aquatic species conservation, afforestation, and engaging the public (Simon & Joshi, 2022). The Indian government has invested in improving and constructing adequate sewage treatment facilities. Prior outfalls into the Ganges have been intercepted and transported to sewage treatment plants.
Less than half of polluting industry facilities have effluent treatment plants and many dispose their wastewater into the Ganges. The government supported the development of common effluent treatment plants (CETP) to reduce polluted discharges (Simon & Joshi, 2022). The government hopes to use proper enforcement of effluent limits should decrease industrial pollution.
A large part of the Namami Gange project includes constructing solid waste management (SWM) projects. Waste from 243 ghats, terraced riverbanks used for bathing, are being managed by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) to reduce solid waste pollution (Simon & Joshi, 2022).
Another part of the Ganges River restoration project focuses on engaging the community with conservation efforts. An awareness program focuses on providing women along the river learning opportunities to teach others about water protection, understand the significance of biodiversity, and participate in conservation efforts to protect the river (Shukla, et al. 2019).
This case study varies from the others as it focuses on watershed-scale management to restore a river ecosystem while the others focus on in-channel and floodplain restoration. Additionally, community engagement is at the forefront which is not heavily emphasized in the other case studies except the Elwha River Project. However, the Ganges River restoration project shares common goals with the other case studies such as providing habitat for important species like the river dolphin in the Ganges and protecting water quality and flows within the system.
Results
131 sewage treatment plants projects have been approved within the Ganges River basin including construction of new plants and refurbishment of existing plants. However, there is still a large difference between the volume of treated wastewater and generated sewage (Simon & Joshi, 2022).
Industries complying with pollution controls measures increased from 51.5% to 87.45% and three CETPs have been constructed since the start of the rejuvenation project (Simon & Joshi, 2022). However, only 45% of industry units had effluent treatment plans at the time of this study (Simon & Joshi, 2022).
Nearly 667 detailed project reports (DPRs) for solid waste management have now been sanctioned, while 413 are under review for approval in the five states of the Ganges basin (Simon & Joshi, 2022).
Although there have been huge investments in sewage treatment infrastructure, the Ganges River restoration project has not reached the desired level of water quality improvement. The initial Namami Gange goals do not adequately account for rapid urbanization and increased waste production in the basin (Simon & Joshi, 2022).
Industrial pollution has not reduced due to increased industrialization and week regulatory enforcement (Bhardwaj & Tevatiya, 2020). Additionally, nonpoint source pollution from agricultural activities remains a main contributor to water quality degradation in the Ganges.
Monitoring & Evaluation
Scientists evaluated water quality parameters in the Ganges River in the muradnagar region before and after the start of the Namami Gange project. They determined that a few samples were greater than the permissible limits for the given water quality parameter, but for the most part the parameters were within the given limits (Bhardwaj & Tevatiya, 2020). They attributed the high turbidity values to increased industrialization in the basin.
Although most of the parameters were measured within acceptable limits, the authors recommend increasing the number of effective sewage treatment plants, mandating treatment of industrial effluent prior to discharge, and reducing the use of chemicals in the industrial processes (Bhardwaj & Tevatiya, 2020).
If you would like to learn more about the intersection of river restoration and water quality in practice please visit these resources:
Water quality deterioration as a driver for river restoration: a review of case studies from Asia, Europe and North America by Viswanathan & Schirmer, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-4353-3
Water Quality as an Indicator of Stream Restoration Effects—A Case Study of the Kwacza River Restoration Project by Mrozińska et al., 2015. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10091249
