The Ramganga River exhibits various zones, the upper reach is a confined mountainous reach, with rocks, boulders, stones and sand as substrate material. After the river passes through foothills, where the riverbed is largely composed of sand followed by stones / pebbles. Further downstream, the river passes through the gangetic plains, characterised by low-lying banks and sandy-silty substratum – it is this zone, which, in case of excessive run-off, may leads to flooding or inundation in the nearby farms and temporary settlements.
WWF-India along with partners (from premier technical and academic institutions [Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi, Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute] of the country, local universities [H.N.B. Garhwal University], civil society organizations [People’s Science Institute Dehradun], local experts [water resources, river basin experts], concerned government departments) embarked on a journey to demonstrate E-Flows in Ramganga in 2013.
On the banks of Ramganga at a busy industrial and populous city (Moradabad – downstream of E-Flows Monitoring Site), the government authorities are implementing various pollution abatement initiatives, some of which are conventional ones, involving the Sewage Treatment Plants and some of them are Nature-Based-Solutions (NbS). These initiatives include identification of 24 drains that empties untreated/partially-treated wastewater into the Ramganga River and employing bio-remediation measures on all the 24 drains by the local Municipal Corporation. In addition to this, the State Pollution Control Board has established monitoring stations on all these 24 drains to monitor the water quality.
Fauna technologies are not applied at the site. Earlier during the E-Flows assessment phase (2013-15), the adoption of holistic methodology (BBM) for Ramganga E-Flows assessment provided the opportunity to the team to investigate the aquatic biodiversity, macro-invertebrates and its state in the river, by conducting field surveys across all the eight sites during all three seasons (pre-monsoon, during-monsoon, post-monsoon) in a year.
Social ecohydrological system
EH Objectives
EH Methodology
Catchment Ecohydrological sub-system
Objectives
Stakeholders
Catchment Sociological sub-system
Activities