IMPACT OF INTERLINKING

OF RIVERS IN PENINSULAR

INDIA-A RESORCESAT-1

STUDY B.S. Prakasa Rao1, N.Bhaskara Rao2

1Department of Geo-Engineering, College of Engineering

2National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad

Table : Drought effected area in each State of

India

State

Total geographic

area

Sq.km

Affected by

drought

Sq.km

Andhra

Pradesh+Telangana

27, 682.0 12,562.38

Karnataka 19,177.00 15,240.10

Maharstra 30,776.00 12,418.06

Orissa 15,578.00 2,290.00

Madya Pradesh 44,284.00 8,648.87

Tamilnadu 13,007.00 8,237.62

The study Area

• The study area is covered in 24 scenes of IRS-P6 LISS-III data as shown in the above table. The digital database is created from Survey of India toposheets of 1:50,000 scale(nos. 400)

• The linking canals under study lie between 90

to 200 N. latitude and 750 to 900 E. longitude.

Link Name of the link Length

(km)

Rock Hills

/ Area

Distance

(km)

Villages to

be

rehabilitate

d

Lat/Long

Starting

Lat/Long

Ending

1 Mhanadi – Godavari 820.71 174.403 205 200 26’ 25” 160 57’00”

850 45’ 14” 810 47’00”

2 Godavari(Polavaram)

–Prakasam Barriage 184.58 10.386 51

170 18’ 54” 160 30’12”

810 38’ 08” 800 36’12”

3 Ichampalli low dam –

Pulichintala 304.74 66.295 63

190 04’ 07” 160 44’07”

780 51’ 09” 79045’15”

4 Ichampalli –

Nagarjunasagar 299.61 66.004 46

180 47’ 55” 160 36’00”

790 55’ 07” 790 5’ 00”

5 Nagajunasagar –

Somasila 393.64 49.353 107

160 19’ 17” 140 30’00”

790 14’ 13” 79 6’00”

6 Srisailam – Pennar low

dam 204.31 39.684 45

150 52’ 46” 140 58’12”

780 10’ 35” 770 55’48”

7 Almatti – Pennar 587.17 - 80 140 26’ 20” 140 52’12”

790 14’ 56” 770 21 36”

8 Somasila – Grandi

anicut 472.52 57.823 244

160 12’ 41” 100 54’00”

760 21’ 47” 780 36’00”

9 Cauvery – Vaigai 256.2 18.039 82 110 04’ 40” 90 38’ 24”

770 53’ 57” 780 8’ 24”

Link Name of the link Water

bodies

Crop

land

Gullied

land Scrub

Built-up

land Sand Forest Others

Total

area

(Sqkm)

1 Mahanadi –

Godavari 1824.86 6580.85 3678.56 3931.87 519.69 791.40 3799.38 8.39 21135.00

2

Godavari(Polavaram

) –Prakasam

Barriage

208.39 1404.75 1007.74 1739.78 639.52 421.84 3276.36 171.62 8870.00

3 Ichampalli low dam –

Pulichintala 165.88 1778.59 293.97 1224.79 64.24 244.34 3000.40 346.79 7119.00

4 Ichampalli–

Nagarjunasagar 28.94 1368.43 162.09 221.62 465.92 221.73 899.49 350.79 3719.01

5 Nagajunasagar–

Somasila 87.33 1302.64 1024.89 2202.60 902.18 757.05 4744.50 171.81 11193.00

6 Srisailam –

Pennar low dam 23.86 894.63 866.00 200.52 412.00 15.21 1001.03 20.56 3433.80

7 Almatti – Pennar 297.85 2081.45 766.73 3439.61 517.14 184.65 1912.82 166.76 9367.01

8 Somasila –

Grandi anicut 758.27 6834.50 776.70 4162.54 167.66 1060.44 3862.07 40.39 17662.57

9 Cauvery – Vaigai 240.32 3120.82 1667.34 2814.32 193.86 586.18 448.88 96.29 9168.01

•The study area includes 20 km carridor and the command

area proposed by NWDA

•Remote sensing study using IRSP6 LISS-III scenes of

2010 have been used to study the link canals.

•The studies indicated that a huge area of wastelamd can

be brought under command area of the link canals

besides meeting present cropland

requirements.

•Domestic water requirements of a number of towns and

villages enroute and industrial and forest around .

•The proposed canals mostly traverse fallow land and

deciduous forest area.the link canal -1,8 and 9

have about 10,000 km each under this class with

cropland..

Conclusions

Conclusions

• It is concluded form the study that the link canals will bring most of the waste land into agriculture land convert dry land into irrigated land, supply water to the towns and improve the ground water table villages enroute and reduce floods in the donor basin.

• It involves minor displacement and rehabilitation in this mega project, which is inevitable in this kind of development activities of sustainability

• High resolution RS data will immense use in this type of mega project giving present condition of the ground and time saving with great accuracy