PATNA: Water management experts as well as water activists from different parts of the country will converge here on Wednesday to discuss the cause of widespread floods in the Gangetic plains of Bihar.
A workshop on “River dynamics and flood hazard assessment with special reference to the Kosi river” has been jointly organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and University of Durham (UK) under the aegis of the UK-India Educational Research Initiative (UKIERI), British Council, New Delhi.
Speaking to TOI, noted water management expert Rajiv Sinha of IIT-Kanpur said that under the UKIERI project, Kosi river’s draining parts of North Bihar and Nepal have been chosen for study because of the Kosi being a river in the north Bihar plains a major tributary to the Ganga river system. This river has been infamous due to recurrent and extensive flooding and frequent changes in its course.
In 2008, India witnessed one of the greatest river disasters in the country in the recent history when the Kosi river shifted 120 km eastward, triggered by the breach of afflux bund at Kusaha in Nepal. This breach had resulted in disaster by flooding of a very large area in Nepal and North Bihar affecting more than 3 million people, Sinha said.
UKIERI has specially examined the role of sediment flux in flood risk in the Kosi river. Kosi carries a very high sediment load and the construction of embankments and barrages had resulted in significant rise of river bed level over the years. The river is presently flowing in super elevated condition at several reaches, including Kusaha, Sinha said.
According to him, flood management strategies in Kosi river have largely been focused on embankments and the controls of geomorphology and sediment flux has not been suitably incorporated in such programmes.
The workshop will discuss river dynamics and flood risk factor on the basis of lessons learnt from Kosi disaster of August 2008, understanding river dynamics, drainage congestion, sediment sources and their role in flood risk, lessons from other Gangetic river systems, river training and impact of structural measures and role of local participation in flood management.
Alexander Densmore of Durham (UK), Ajay Dixit of Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Dinesh Mishra of Barh Mukti Abhiyan, L P Singh of Ganga Flood Control Commission will be prominent among those participating in the workshop, Sinha said.