1. Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Manish Kumar, Nachiket Kelkar, Tarun Nair & Vidyadhar Atkore (2017). Moving from requiem to revival: India’s rivers and riverine ecosystems, in Transcending boundaries: Reflecting on twenty years of action and research at ATREE (Eds). Ankila J. Hiremath, Nitin D. Rai and Ananda Siddhartha. Pg. 94-103.

Full text

94 95
Jayesh Sivan
Moving from requiem to revival:
India’s rivers and riverine
ecosystems
Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Manish Kumar, Nachiket
Kelkar, Tarun Nair and Vidyadhar Atkore
INTRODUCTION
In September 2014, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, stated, “rivers are the soul of the na-
tion,” and committed to reviving them using
the best available scientific knowledge. The
following year, he remarked, “generations
will not forgive us for the manner in which we
have treated our water.” But such pronounce-
ments are far removed from the realities of
our policies and practices.
Without doubt, human transformation of
hydrology has been an important driver
for sustaining agricultural productivity and
urban development throughout history1.
Approximately 4700 large reservoirs (reser-
voirswithcapacity≥1millioncubicmetres)
and 208 barrages have already been built in
India, primarily for irrigation and hydropower.
Further, several projects for power generation
and large-scale inter-basin water diversions
are underway, and proposed. However, these
projects will undoubtedly and drastically alter
regional hydrology, and negatively affect
freshwater, estuarine, and deltaic ecosys-
tems, their biodiversity and habitats, and the
ecosystem services they provide (provision-
ing, regulating, cultural). Such projects will
also displace and marginalise numerous local
resident communities, and destroy forests and
river ecosystems. In addition, the impacts of
widespread river pollution, and overexploita-
tion of groundwater and other freshwater
resources are mounting to damaging levels.
However, increasing population, and the
ever-growing thirst for freshwater, have
overshadowed our perceptions of the en-
vironmental risks involved in mega-scale
technological solutions proposed to ‘solve’
water crises and meet demands. For instance,
the plan to interlink India’s rivers is raising
1 Krishnaswamy, J. 2015. Saving India’s rivers and
riverine ecosystems. Fundamatics - IITBAA Magazine.
http://www.fundamatics.net/article/saving-indias-riv-
ers-and-riverine-ecosystems/
major concerns about impacts on aquatic
biodiversity and hydrological services, apart
from its unsustainability and economic unvia-
bility under current and future climate change
scenarios. There are legitimate ecological and
environmental concerns about hydropower
and irrigation projects being developed on
the last remaining free-flowing streams and
rivers. An ecological understanding of our
rivers has remained poor and marginal in pub-
lic awareness, thanks to discourses on river
management dominated by myopic visions of
economic growth and technological salva-
tion. A good starting point is the reimagining
of our rivers as connected ecosystems from
headwaters to deltas and estuaries.
RIVERS AS ECOSYSTEMS, NOT
MERE CONDUITS FOR WATER
SUPPLY
Rivers are unique ecosystems because of the
hierarchical and nested system of tributaries.
They harness and transport water, nutrients,
biomass, living organisms, and sediments,
from large slices of the earth’s biosphere, even
as their courses straddle diverse geologies,
terrestrial ecosystems, and cultures, often over
hundreds or thousands of kilometres, from
headwaters to deltas (see Figure 1). The func-
tioning of riverine ecosystems, and the ecosys-
tem services that societies derive from them,
needmonsoonaloodsaswellasdry-season
baseows.Ariver’sexistenceasaconnected,
dynamic ecosystem needs sandbanks, riparian
vegetation,islands,andoodplainswiththeir
wetlands. Rivers are not just the cradles of civ-
ilisations, they are also barometers of change
in their vast upstream catchments, linking the
mountains to the seas.
The role of peak monsoonal flows in sustain-
ing downstream ecosystems and livelihoods,
especially the fisheries in deltas, estuaries,
and shallow marine ecosystems, tends to be
ignored. Similarly, sedimentation processes
play a critical role in regulating ecosystem

96 97
functions and species diversity. These eco-
systems depend on sediment, nutrient, and
freshwater flows to maintain the unique salin-
ity and biogeochemistry regimes that deter-
mine their productivity and biodiversity. The
very existence of this productivity depends
on dynamic fluctuations, pulses, abrupt, and
rapid changes. Just contrast this with a river
imagined by a purely engineering-based
‘model’, as merely a conduit of water with a
steady volume of flow. Technology constant-
ly attempts to mute the dynamic character
of rivers to actually render them merely as
freshwater supply channels, rather than as
living ecosystems.
Anotherinstanceisinthewayweviewoods
even today. Floods perform a crucial role in
sustaining the productivity of agriculture and
sheriesbyredistributingandconnectingsedi-
ments, nutrients, and water. They also provide
corridors for species to move along, and across,
theriveroodplain,andindeed,multiple
speciesofshes,invertebrates,amphibians,
reptiles, and mammals have their life-cycles
tuned to cues received from rising and falling
oodlevels.Floodschangebothlandscapesas
well as riverscapes, but human land uses insist
on permanent, stable settlements, which are
anidealinconictwiththenaturalcharacter
of rivers. For ecologically sustainable manage-
mentofriversandoodplains,thereisaneed
tomoveawayfromtheparadigmthatoods
are undesirable; we must recognise that land-
use and livelihoods can be made compatible
with periodic disturbance regimes.
OUR RIVERS AT RISK
The dominant paradigm of river management
in India (and one often repeated by politicians,
engineers, and bureaucrats) is, “so much
water is going ‘waste’ into the sea,” justifying
the construction of a multitude of dams and
Figure 1. A schematic depicting a river’s course from its headwaters to the ocean, and illustrating
ecological ow regimes that are important to maintain habitats and biodiversity.
barrages, and the plans to inter-link rivers.
Inter-basin transfers, as part of the National
River Linking Project (NRLP), are based on
the assumption that ‘surplus’ water in some
basins (in the wet-season) can be diverted to
other ‘deficient’ basins. In the context of the
Western Ghats, numerous inter-basin trans-
fer projects (e.g. the Mahadayi-Malaprabha
diversion) have been proposed to divert
‘surplus’ water from west-flowing rivers to
the ‘deficient’ basins of east-flowing rivers to
meet drinking water, irrigation, and energy
demands. However, the notion of surplus is
often based on limited data, and a poor under-
standing of the role of natural flows, including
floods and periodic droughts, in maintaining
ecosystems and ecological processes.
In most cases, water scarcity problems have
been addressed by supply augmentation,
either through creating additional season-
al storage, or engineered diversions from
neighbouring basins. The whole engineer-
ing-dominated discourse on ‘utilisation’ of
river waters, vis-à-vis ecological and environ-
mental functions and ecosystem benefits of
free-flowing rivers, is now being questioned.
These definitions of surplus and deficient will
also need to be revisited, especially in the
context of changing climatic trends and the
need to maintain environmental flows.
Climate change and the
(mis)management of rivers
The construction and design of dams or bar-
rages is based on an underlying assumption
of stationarity of the hydrologic cycle, that
the dynamic linkages between precipita-
tion, groundwater, and hydrologic flows are
predictable and manageable. The assumption
remains largely flawed and potentially dis-
astrous in a changing climate, as India faces
hydrological uncertainties. The Indian mon-
soon has been declining since the 1950s, but
extreme rain events are increasing in some
parts of the country. The spatial and temporal
uncertainty in the rainfall regime is best illus-
trated by what we have seen in the country in
2015 and 2016: drought in some parts (e.g.,
Bundelkhand, Vidarbha), floods in others
(e.g., Assam, Bihar, Chennai), and areas with
crop failure subsequently undergoing intense
rain and floods (e.g., Maharashtra, Haryana).
Unfortunately, current water management
fails to account for long-term climate trends
as well as short-term climate variability,
especially in the case of largescale inter-basin
(or inter-state) transfers, raising doubts over
their long-term efficacy. Development pres-
sures have also compromised on the capacity
of riverine ecosystems to sustain ecosys-
tems such as mangrove forests in mitigating
impacts of extreme flooding or sea-level
rise. Similarly, loss of catchment forests, and
encroachment on drainage pathways, exac-
erbate impacts of extreme events, as seen
during the Kedarnath flash floods in 2013.
Hydropower: the myth of green energy?
Hydropower development in India, particularly
in the Himalayan basins, has increased at an
unprecedented rate in the past decade, with
plans to generate 50,000 MW. We have ignored
the poor environmental record of hydropower,
e.g., widespread forest submergence, biodi-
versity loss, and large-scale displacement of
people; and have, instead, promoted hydro-
power as ‘green energy’. The consequences of
hydropower, both small and large, continue to
impact the Himalayas: stagnant river stretches
behind dam-structures, de-watered stretches
for several kilometres downstream, devastat-
edhillslopes,frequentlandslides,theaected
Bhabaroodplains,andincreasedseismic
vulnerability in this earthquake-prone region.
And this is despite India being power surplus
and states not buying power.
Even small hydro-power projects—clusters of
which are being planned since large dams are
no longer feasible or acceptable—by design,
Megha Vishwanath

98 99
introduce artificial fluctuations in stream-flow
during the power generation cycle. These
fluctuations differ from natural daily and
seasonal pulses in stream-flow by orders of
magnitude, with negative impacts on aquatic
plants and animals.
Urbanisation and pollution impacts
India’s move towards increased urban and
industrial growth is unplanned in terms of
water demand and supply, and environmental
impacts on rivers and wetlands. Water sup-
plies to urban, industrial, and other settle-
ment clusters place ever greater demands on
the limited sources of unpolluted freshwater,
and in return they often discharge highly
polluted water (sewage) back into rivers (see
Thomas et al., Jamwal et al., this volume).
Over-exploitation of groundwater in urbanis-
ing watersheds is reducing base-flows, and in
some cases eliminates base-flow in many riv-
ers (see Srinivasan et al., this volume). These
demands have also brought forth issues of
access and quality of available water, leading
to conflicts and loss of riverine ecosystems
and services. These issues are well illustrated
in the cases of the Yamuna and Daman Ganga,
as they flow past Delhi and Vapi, respectively.
Promoting recycling, and reducing water use
and wastage of water in all sectors (agri-
cultural, industrial, and domestic) is critical
given the levels of pollution caused by these
demands. Furthermore, high quality water
from ecosystems should be at a premium so
that industry cannot get water at a cheap
rate anymore.
Interventions like the National Mission for
Clean Ganga (preceded by the Ganga Action
Plan) attempt to address river pollution.
However, they are often too narrowly fo-
cussed on the cleanliness of pilgrim centres
along rivers that are considered holy, rather
than considering eco-hydrological condi-
tions at the river-basin scale. Unless cities
and towns take responsibility for recycling
water and investing in local reservoirs, and
take major steps to reduce water pollution,
ecological flow regimes in rivers cannot be
achieved. We hope that India’s plans for
‘smart cities’ are also ‘smart’ about managing
and recycling water.
Dredging for national waterways: break-
ing our rivers’ backs?
Envisioned by India’s Ministry of Road Trans-
port, Highways, and Shipping, the National
Waterways Act, 2016, if implemented, will
lead to the conversion of 111 rivers and
creeks across India into waterway canals, for
‘eco-friendly transport’ of bulk cargo, coal, in-
dustrial raw materials, and for tourism purpos-
es. Indeed, many of India’s larger rivers, es-
pecially in the Gangetic plains, were used for
navigation and goods transport until almost
the early 19th century. However, this was in an
age where rivers flowed without barriers, and
there was no large-scale extraction to reduce
dry-season discharge and depth.
Even though they are being promoted
as fuel-efficient, cost-effective, and car-
bon-friendly2, waterways, today, cannot be
maintained without ecologically-destructive
practices such as river-bottom dredging and
channelisation to maintain a depth sufficient
for ships and vessels to ply. This can cause
complete destruction of fish-breeding habi-
tats, disturbance to aquatic wildlife such as
river dolphins, turtles, and crocodilians, and
loss of resources for people dependent on
river fisheries for subsistence. Channelising
river courses and flows by construction of
ports, embankments, and navigation locks is
certainly going to endanger what remains of
our rivers.
2 Kelkar, N. 2016. Digging our rivers’ graves? A sum-
mary analysis of the ecological impacts of the National
Waterways Bill (2015). Dams, Rivers, and People
Newsletter. South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers, and
People (SANDRP) 14(1-2): 1–6.
IMPACTS OF ALTERED FLOWS AND
OTHER HUMAN DISTURBANCES
Impacts on biodiversity
Dams, barrages, and hydropower projects
have led to widespread destruction of river
fish breeding areas and disconnected their
migration pathways. For example, studies on
the impacts of hydrological regulation in the
Malaprabha and Mahadayi (Mhadei) catch-
ments, in the Western Ghats, found decreased
local abundances of hill-stream fishes such
as Western Ghats loach (Bhavania australis)
and catfish (Glyptothorax sp). Similarly, the
controversial Farakka Barrage, in West Ben-
gal, was chiefly responsible for the collapse of
the commercially prized hilsa fish because it
prevented their upriver movement to spawn
in the Ganga basin. The impacts of reduced
freshwater flows into estuaries—despite the
contribution of these flows to vital coastal
and marine processes critical for estuarine
shellfish (molluscs, crustaceans) and fish pro-
duction—are also often ignored.
Populations of riverine wildlife have been
fragmented by multiple dams and barrages.
In some cases, alteration to river flows, and
consequent threat to livelihood security, has
also forced local communities to resort to
large-scale hunting. Many endangered species
such as river dolphins, gharials, freshwater
turtles, otters, and birds, have seen signifi-
cant local population declines due to overex-
ploitation and poaching. A good case of this
is the near-extinction of many freshwater
turtle populations from a large region of the
Gangetic basin due to hunting. Turtles contrib-
ute to cleaning the river water by feeding on
organic matter, and their decline can deplete
this important ecosystem service.
Impacts on river-based livelihoods
Due to poor water levels in our rivers,
caused by flow regulations and alarming
pollution levels, fisheries productivity is de-
clining and fisher-folk are highly vulnerable
to losing their resource base. It is a shock-
ing fact that our river fisheries are on the
verge of collapse, despite India being the
second-largest producer, globally, of farmed
freshwater fish today. Tropical estuarine
areas, free from major developmental pro-
jects, have been known for their extremely
productive fisheries. However, reduced/
unseasonal freshwater flows due to dams
and diversions have affected these occupa-
tions. For instance, the Sharavathi estuary
fishery (only 29 fish species) has reportedly
collapsed after hydropower development,
while the neighbouring Aghanashini estuary
fishery (77 fish species) continues to thrive
at the mouth of the undammed Aghanashini
river. Yet, few studies have ascertained the
importance of unaltered hydrologic re-
gimes, and economic returns from fisheries,
to in-stream and downstream local commu-
nities in India.

100 101
RIVER RESTORATION: RHETORIC
AND REALITIES
Lack of scientific ecological guidelines
in India’s water policies
The impacts of altered river-flow regimes
on biodiversity and ecosystem services have
largely been ignored in India, and even asso-
ciated concepts and methods are usually hy-
drologically and statistically driven, without
sufficiently addressing ecosystem processes
and services, species biologies, and livelihood
dependencies. The National Water Policy
(2012) has mandated that ecological and
environmental flows be maintained in rivers,
but we do not have any scientific guidelines
or management frameworks for assessing
flow regimes for specific riverine ecosystems
and ecosystem services. Our policies do not
impose efficiency criteria for competing wa-
ter-users like industry, cities, or agriculture,
to enable allocation of water for maintaining
ecological and environmental flows. Environ-
mental flows also include water allocations
to support the livelihoods of over 15 million
fisher-folk dependent on India’s rivers.
Many scholars now argue that ‘surplus’ wa-
ter assessments conducted for NRLP have
ignored a whole range of ecological, envi-
ronmental, and social issues. The methods
used to estimate the environmental flow
requirements (EFReq) and in-stream utili-
sation (water demands) of streamflow to
arrive at the surplus followed the outdat-
ed guidelines proposed in the India Water
Policy (2002) and draft Revised National
Water Policy (2012). The application of new
methods for understanding environmental
flow ‘regimes’ (EFReg) would classify these
large storage and diversion projects as
either environmentally damaging or socially
unjust/inequitable.
The July 2016 interim order verdict in the Ma-
hadayi water dispute, for example, is there-
fore significant, because for the first time,
two paradigms dominating the discourse on
sharing river waters (between the headwater
streams of Mahadayi, and the east-flowing
Malaprabha river) have been challenged by
the court: that river water flowing to the sea
is a ‘waste’ and that so called ‘surplus’ has to
be estimated at the point of extraction (i.e.,
in the headwater catchment), and not at the
entire basin scale. All concerned parties will
hopefully use the best available knowledge
on these issues to agree on socially just and
environmentally sustainable demands on
river waters, and plan to reduce wastage and
enhance recycling of water.
Sediment fluxes as an integral part of
the ecological flow regime
As mentioned earlier, sediment flux plays a
critical role in regulating ecosystem function
and species diversity. ‘Ecological flow re-
gime’, by definition, includes sediments and
nutrients, which are crucial for downstream
ecosystems—the term does not merely refer
to the volume of water. By trapping sediment
in reservoirs, dams interrupt the continuity
of sediment transport through rivers, and
deprive downstream reaches of sediments es-
sential for channel form and aquatic habitats.
This also results in the loss of reservoir stor-
age and reduces the usable life of reservoirs.
The complexities of managing ecological
flows from dam reservoirs all over India
are illustrated well by the Bansagar Dam.
Constructed in 2006, upstream of the Son
Gharial Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, this
dam threatens the continued survival of the
critically endangered gharials there. Sand and
silt deposits are crucial for creating and main-
taining sandbanks and emergent sandbar
habitats of gharial, turtles, and Indian skim-
mers, to cite a few species of management
focus in the sanctuary. Flow reduction, erratic
releases from the dam, drastically reduced
sediment supply, and sand mining, deplete
these island deposits within the sanctuary,
leading to habitat loss and breeding failure
for many species.
We assessed the scope of dam re-operations
like sediment flushing for the Bansagar Dam,
such that ecological flow regimes and sedi-
ment fluxes are maintained for the successful
breeding and continued persistence of endan-
gered wildlife in the sanctuary. Our work has
shown that short-term sacrifices in water stor-
age or power generation from dam reservoirs
will be inevitable, but can result in long-term
gains in storage capacity, downstream ecolog-
ical benefits, and biodiversity conservation.
Managing barrages and dam reservoirs
for biodiversity and ecosystem services
Dam re-operations (via ecological flow re-
gimes, habitat management, sediment flush-
ing, dry-season release timing, and optimised
irrigation water supply) for biodiversity and
ecosystem services remains a highly neglect-
ed area in current water management. Re-op-
erations make a strong case for incorporating
ecological knowledge into existing paradigms
of engineering-based river management, can
have a significant impact on reducing the
negative impacts of existing river regulation,
and offer opportunities for partially restoring
river ecosystem health and services. These
opportunities will be constrained by existing
water-allocation agreements, and political
or legal impediments, but it is necessary to
recognise that dam re-operations are in the
best interest of rivers, biodiversity, and hu-
man society at large. The following examples
highlight potential scenarios in which this
could be achieved.
Barrages and novel habitats
While the overall impacts of barrages are
negative, some barrages have also, inciden-
tally, created new habitats and ecosystems
for biodiversity. Some have helped conserve
forests in the upper catchment, due to the
declaration of protected areas to reduce silta-
tion into dam reservoirs, and reduce pollu-
tion. These novel ecosystems include globally
significant Ramsar sites such as the Pong
Dam Lake in Himachal Pradesh, and Harike in
Punjab, as well as numerous wetlands in and
around protected areas, where the annual
drawdown for irrigation results in new grassy
habitat for wildlife, both aquatic and terrestri-
al. Such scenarios, indeed, offer some hope to
conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services,
and the attributes of these hydrologic and
ecological transformations must be studied to
manage existing and new reservoirs/barrages
with local stakeholders.
Fish ladders versus ecological flows
There is renewed talk of constructing new
fish ladders at the controversial Farakka
Barrage (with an already defunct fish ladder)
to ensure that fish such as hilsa can swim
upriver to spawn in the Ganga and revive
livelihoods of fisher-folk. The success of fish

102 103
ladders in tropical and subtropical rivers,
with high sediment fluxes, has been abysmal-
ly poor because of poor water levels released
downstream. Solutions for sustaining fish-
eries need to therefore go beyond band-aid
engineering solutions, and will require the
combined efforts of hydrologists and fish
biologists towards experimentally arriving at,
and adaptively managing, flow regimes for
facilitating upriver fish migration. Preserv-
ing undammed and undisturbed tributaries,
which may serve as habitat refuges for fish
downstream of dams from further water
development, will be crucial for the success
of fisheries restoration measures.
CONCLUSION: THE NEED FOR A
PARADIGM SHIFT TO MOVE FROM
REQUIEM TO REVIVAL
Given the scale of threats facing our river
ecosystems, it is critical to emphasise the
need for a paradigm shift in the way we look
at our rivers and their importance for our
own resilience, development, culture, and
welfare. This paradigm shift is essentially a
call for foregrounding a dynamic and ecolog-
ical understanding of rivers by going beyond
the dominant engineering-based outlook
that views them merely as ‘volumes’ or ‘con-
duits’. We have a limited window of time to
infuse ecological concerns into major immi-
nent projects that are likely to modify our
rivers even further. The appreciation of rivers
as interconnected socio-ecological systems
needs to be developed across civil society
and government.
While we acknowledge the benefits of irrigat-
ed agriculture and hydropower from dams,
barrages, and reservoirs in India, we believe
it is necessary to examine the costs of further
large-scale transformations on the last re-
maining free-flowing rivers and streams, and
to question our approach to water manage-
ment in the country. The growing evidence
from negative impacts of barrages and dams
on downstream ecosystems, ecosystem
services, and livelihoods, should be carefully
assessed by all stakeholders before planning
any new transformations. It would only be
prudent for engineers to reconsider large-
scale riverlinking plans, keeping in mind their
overall feasibility and environmental impacts.
Gharials need adequate flows, regular sand deposition, and restrictions on fishing, to breed.
(Photo: Tarun Nair)
Even for projects that may meet these criteria
and are eventually implemented, scientists,
stakeholders, and land-use planners, need to
work hard to minimise damage to biodiversity
and plan for mitigation and adaptation. If we
wish to meaningfully move from requiem to
revival for India’s rivers and riverine ecosys-
tems, ecological flow regimes should become
an integral part of any future project design,
rather than an afterthought. At present it is
unfortunate, but necessary, to acknowledge
that for many rivers, regulated flows may be
the only option for conserving aquatic biodi-
versity and traditional river-based livelihoods.
As we have argued, concerns for conservation
and sustainable livelihoods hinge not only on
reducing socio-economic inequities to access-
ing water, but also integrating recycling and
reducing water wastage across sectors, and
sparing water for ecological processes. These
efforts will only support and strengthen the
continuity of ecological flow regimes main-
tained within existing management struc-
tures. In the short term we need to engage
urgently to avoid the potentially irreversible
impacts of immediate, and ongoing, large-
scale transformations of flowing rivers. This
will need an effort by interdisciplinary eco-hy-
drological science, over and above mere
engineering calculations.
Further Reading
Dandekar, P. 2012. Indian Himalayas moving
towards highest dam densities in the world.
Dams, Rivers & People 10(10-11): 14–15.
Ghosh, S., H. Vittal, T. Sharma, S. Karmakar,
KS. Kasiviswanathan, Y. Dhanesh, KP. Sud-
heer, et al. 2016. Indian summer monsoon
rainfall: implications of contrasting trends
in the spatial variability of means and ex-
tremes. PLoS One 11(7): e0158670.
Huber, A. and D. Joshi. 2015. Hydropower,
anti-politics, and the opening of new polit-
ical spaces in the Eastern Himalayas. World
Development 76: 13–25.
Mittra, S. and R. D’Souza. 2013. Fishing in
troubled waters and the cusec-megawatt
river. Seminar 652.