The top layer of accumulated sand washed down by floods over millions of years, makes river floodplains into giant aquifers. We propose a scheme for the natural storage of excess monsoon river-water discharge in the extensive and deep sand top layer of the floodplain of the river.

Assessment of erosion status of watersheds is an essential prerequisite for Integrated Watershed Management (IWM). It not only assists in identifying the suitable soil and water conservation measures to arrest erosion and conserve water but also helps in devising best management practices (BMPs) to enhance biomass production in watersheds.

A study on land degradation in the upper catchment of river Tons, a tributary of Yamuna river, in Uttarkashi district of the Uttarakhand state, was carried out using on-screen visual interpretation of IRS LISS-III + PAN merged data. The study area, which is largely mountainous, includes Govind Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park.

Wetlands perform many essential ecosystem services—carbon storage, flood control, maintenance of biodiversity, fish production, and aquifer recharge, among others—services that have increasingly important global consequences. Like biodiversity hotspots and frontier forests, the world’s largest wetlands are now mapped and described by an international team of scientists, highlighting their conservation importance at the global scale. We explore current understanding of some ecosystem services wetlands provide.

In the Himalayan terrain, the Kosi river is formed by the confluence of seven smaller streams, viz. Indravati, Sun Kosi, Tama Kosi, Likhu Kosi, Dudh Kosi, Arun Kosi and Tamar Kosi at different places in China, Tibet and Nepal, before its entry into the Indian state of Bihar. The Kosi river is responsible for many floods in Bihar.

At geological time scales, the role of continental erosion in the organic carbon (OC) cycle is determined by the balance between recent OC burial and petrogenic OC oxidation. Evaluating its net effect on the concentration of carbon dioxide and dioxygen in the atmosphere requires the fate of petrogenic OC to be assessed.

Not excess water, but neglected embankment caused the flood India has blamed the previous seven breaches on the Kosi embankment on Nepal releasing water from the barrage at Bhimnagar, even though Nepal has no control over the sluice gates. All the earlier breaches had occurred downstream of the barrage. But this year the breach happened upstream of the barrage and the flow was less

A baffled Bihar is struggling to provide food and shelter to three million people rendered homeless by a flood that swept through five districts. The Down To Earth team travels across the areas inundated by the Kosi in Bihar and Nepal to grasp the impact and concludes that the flood is a human failure, not natural disaster

Kosi, the river of sorrow of Bihar, is in the news. The news is really bad. As long expected by the professinals, embankment has breached. Fifty thousand persons in Nepal and 2.5 million in Bihar are experiencing the fury of the Kosi flood. Embankments are no solution to the flood problem.

Ganga is one of the largest rivers of the world which supports millions of population on its banks. It is a tectonically controlled Himalayan river which also creates havoc due to perennial floods every year. Like most large river systems, it also shifts its course in the Gangetic plains in space and time.