Roadmap for inclusive Ganga restoration effort

[Re-posting my submission for a task in mygov.in. This article describes the steps that are needed to be taken for successful and inclusive restoration of Ganga river.]  

The following are logical steps to restore the river Ganga:

1)      We must stop causing any more damage to the river. The first step is to find out, what are the sources of pollution in river Ganga and conrol them. The data for this should be already available. If not, the data should be obtained and compiled, as soon as possible.  The source of pollution should be classified as municipal wastes, Medium-and-Large-scale industrial waste, Small-and-Micro scale industrial waste, and waste from people near the banks. The following action should be taken to with respect to each of the groups:

i)                    Municipal waste: These are wastes that include sewage water and water from storm-water drains from cities/towns/villages on the bank of the river. The first thing that can be done is to start a process of setting up treating facility for these sewers and allowing only the treated water into the river. This should be done by the local government. This could be first step as the points at which the sewers enter the river are known. The following link describes how sewage water is treated London before releasing it into Thames river: http://www.thameswater.co.uk/cycles/accessible/sewage_treatment.html 

Regarding the wastes from storm-water, different methods are available to reduce the build up of storm-water during the rainy season. Methods termed as “Green infrastructure” such as Rainwater harvesting, Downpour disconnect and Permeable pavements, Low impact development etc. are common ways to do reduce the storm-water build up. This are more suited for urban scenario. The local municipalities or the corporation should encourage people to adopt these technologies at their home, offices etc. In public locality/buildings the government should implement these, as soon as possible. A suitable deadline should be set before which, all buildings must adopt such green infrastructure.  The details of the green infrastructure are given in the following link: http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/greeninfrastructure/gi_what.cfm     

ii)                   Medium and Large scale industrial waste: Immediate action should be taken against medium and large scale industry that generate waste and dispose them in the river. They should be given a short but justified period of time, within which they should start treating the waste they generate.

iii)                 Small and Micro scale industrial waste: Small and micro scale industry may not have the capacity to process the waste they generate. However, it must not be an excuse for polluting the environment. The government should support them to undertake a technology upgrade or setting up treatment plants and set a deadline for them to comply. Similar industries which are close to each other can work together to set up a common treatment plant. Steps should be taken to control pollution and relocate some of the industries, as adopted by the Singapore government to clean the Singapore river (http://apfed-db.iges.or.jp/dtlbpp.php?no=23)

iv)                 Waste from people near the river banks: These are wastes that are generated from Varanasi Ghats, run-offs from farmlands, people who use river as toilets. Regarding improving Varanasi Ghats, I have submitted a comprehensive document in the other task of this group. The wastes from farmlands and human wastes are complex scenarios which cannot be solved by simple steps.  These problems are addressed in    

2)      The next step is to restore the river. Restoration doesn’t just mean making the water appear clear. A successful restoration will bring back original state of river. Operations such as removing polluted sediments by dredging, removal of invasive species, restoration of side channels, performing environmental assessment on existing structures across the river and preserving existing (unaffected) region of the river etc are some of them. Also, for successful restoration, the process should be adaptive with respect to the initial results. The following are some of the steps that need to be taken.  

i)                    Analyse the situation: The first and important step that has to be taken is to analyse the present situation. The government can take the help of student and experts from educational and research institutions to carry out this task.

ii)                   Prepare a plan: Once in-depth knowledge of the present situation is obtained, the river can be classified based on amount of pollution and ecological damage. A proper plan should be developed, taking into account all stake holders concerns. The plan must lay down achievable goals and define an image of river system that we need reach. The guiding image should describe the dynamic, ecologically healthy river that could exist at a given site. This image may be influenced by irrevocable changes to catchment hydrology and geomorphology, by permanent infrastructure on the floodplain and banks, or by introduced non-native species that cannot be removed. The restoration goal should be to move the river towards the least degraded and most ecologically dynamic state possible, given the regional context. An ecologically dynamic state is also resilient to external perturbations.  Some of the steps could be:

a)      Removing polluted sediments: Some region of the river may be heavily polluted by nearby industries or other human activities. In such region, it may be easier to remove the polluted sediments compared to cleaning them. However, care must be taken to avoid damage to natural ecosystem of the river, while dredging.

b)      Removal of invasive species:  Benefits from invasive species control include maintained or increase biodiversity, increased productivity and restoration of native communities.

c)       Restoration of side channels: In addition to the primary function of providing refuge from high energy environment of main channel for fishes and wildlife, side channel could provide act as recreational spot for people who are enjoying the river experience. If side channel are restored, this region should not be used for transportation.  This side channel will also provide safe and enhances natural experience for passive recreational activities.  

d)      Performing environmental assessment on existing and future structures across the river: Environmental assessment of existence structures should be conducted and ill-advised projects that are found to cause damage to the environment should be removed.  NGOs should work with the experts and government officials to perform the assessments. The following article available online, describes the role of NGOs in working on successful river restoration projects.  http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CEF_SpecialReport.2.pdf .

This task could also recommend suitable sites for Fish Passage, Dam Removal and Culvert Right-Sizing.  

e)      Preserving existing, unaffected structures: The cost of preserving existing structures is very less compared to restoring a damaged environment.   Such regions which are unaffected from environmental damage, should be identified and immediate action should be taken to protect them.

iii)                 The river is measurably enhanced: Ecologically successful restoration will induce measurable changes in physicochemical and biological components of the target river or stream that move towards the agreed upon guiding image. Re-establishment of an extirpated fish population, improved water clarity and quality, and establishment of a seasonally inundated meadow following dam removal are readily identified signs of ecological recovery. Such endpoints may take time, and the components being measured will usually have trajectories of different shapes and rates because they differ in their responses to the intervention. An increase in variability may be a signal of successful restoration because natural systems are inherently variable. However, demonstrating improvement may require evaluation of the variability of the restored river's components with respect to pre-restoration conditions, an undisturbed or less degraded river, or from a process-based understanding of the component dynamics.

iv)                 The resilience of river is increased: Ecosystems are subject to changing conditions because of temporal variations in both natural factors and human activities. Ecologically successful river restoration creates hydrological, geomorphological and ecological conditions that allow the restored river to be a resilient self-sustainable system, one that has the capacity for recovery from rapid change and stress.

v)                  No lasting harm is done:  Restoration is an intervention that causes impacts to the system, which may be extreme (e.g. channel reconfigurations). Even in such situations, an ecologically successful restoration minimizes the long-term impacts to the river. For example, a channel modification project should minimize loss of native vegetation during in-river reconstruction activity, and should avoid the fish spawning season for construction work. Indeed, removal of any native riparian vegetation should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Additionally, restoration should be planned so that it does not degrade other restoration activities being carried out in the vicinity.

vi)                Completing the post-assessment of the project: Ecological success in a restoration project cannot be declared in the absence of clear project objectives from the start and subsequent evaluation of their achievement.     

[Source:  1) http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/remediation_hudson_pdf/hrerestplan0713.pdf  
2) M.A. PALMER, E.S. BERNHARDT, J. D. ALLAN, P.S. LAKE, G. ALEXANDER, S. BROOKS, J. CARR, S. CLAYTON, C. N. DAHM, J. FOLLSTAD SHAH, D. L. GALAT, S. G. LOSS, P. GOODWIN, D.D. HART, B. HASSETT, R. JENKINSON, G.M. KONDOLF, R. LAVE, J.L. MEYER, T.K. O'DONNELL, L. PAGANO, E. SUDDUTH,  Standards for ecologically successful river restoration, Journal of Applied Ecology Volume 42, Issue 2, pages 208–217, April 2005