Runaway dam construction is having a devastating effect on Himalayan river systems as evidenced by the recent flooding on the Rishi Ganga. While the world is realizing the benefits of free-flowing rivers, why are India’s policymakers still stuck in the mire of damming our water sources?
LINK (via: The Pioneer)
Something that I wrote, in quiet despair, below a fast-disappearing “Dammed and Drugged” posting about one of your own much-put-on rivers a week ago:
Paul Boote
February 7, 2021 at 7:13 am
Meanwhile, in Indian Mahseer Country….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55969669
The Dhauli Ganga River featured meets the Alakananda River (which I have fished) which, when joined by the Bhagirathi River (also fished), at Devprayag, becomes the Ganges River proper (upper reaches, fished a lot). The smashed dam featured is one of many new ones in the Upper Ganges watershed and is a mere “tiddler” by local standards
Dams in this time of melting glaciers and icecaps, eh…?
And as for a massive earthquake in what is a geologically unstable mountainous region causing a massive, maybe multi-dam “domino effect” failure that sends a suddenly colossal Ganges raging through the Himalaya to the meet the few million souls who live immediately below where it leaves the last of the Himalayan foothills and hits the North Indian Plains…..
Sheesh.
Must-have Economic Growth and Development, Technocrats’ and Politicians’ (both local and national) Patriotic Moonshot Machismo….
And not just in India.
Sheesh 2.