Key Features: Reviews the risks of inter-basin water transfers warns of critical disadvantages with India's proposed ILR plan offers viable less-risky solutions for water resource development. Inter-basin water transfers are complex human interventions on natural systems that can have profound adverse as well as beneficial social, economic and environmental implications. India's plan to interlink its rivers (ILR) and to transfer water may, according to one set of views, generate positive benefits through improved and expanded irrigation and may also contribute to flood and drought hazards mitigation for India, although the magnitudes are debatable. However, there are opposing views, in the context of India itself, that the interlinking plan is economically prohibitive, fraught with uncertainties, and has potential for disastrous and irreversible adverse after-effects. Water deficit can be reduced through improved water management without large scale engineering interventions. Moreover many of the rivers involved, particularly in the Himalayan component, are international and, therefore, the scheme has major implications for other riparians. Indeed, the planned transfer of water from the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers will adversely impact Bangladesh socially, economically and environmentally---unless arrangements are made to maintain historical flows, which is unlikely to be feasible.
Any multipurpose storage reservoirs in upstream countries, such as Nepal and Bhutan, would facilitate energy generation and other benefits but will also cause adverse environmental and social impacts to these countries. Therefore, the ILR plan will further complicate existing water sharing and management problems between India and other co-basin countries. Strengthening and expansion of cooperative efforts among the co-basin countries for water resources development and sharing can generate economic benefits for the people of these countries and also foster co-riparian relationships.
M. Monirul Q. Mirza: University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Ahsan Uddin Ahmed: Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad, Dhaka
Q.K. Ahmad: Bagladesh Unnayan Parishad, Dhaka
List Price: £59.00
ISBN: 9780415404693 Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication Date: 25/07/2008
Pages: 320 Cat. #: SW469X
Market: Environmental Studies
Table of Contents 1. Interlinking Rivers in India: Issues and Concerns 2. Interlinking of Rivers: Experience from Across the World 3. The Vital Link 4. The Interlinking of Indian Rivers: Questions on the Scientific, Economic and Environmental Dimensions of the Proposal 5. A Systems Approach to Interlinking Rivers in India: An Examination of Viability 6. Impact of the Interlinking of Rivers on Nepal: A Critical Analysis 7. Modeling the Interlinking of the Ganges River: Simulated Changes in Flow 8. India's Energy Future and Interlinking of Rivers 9. Potential Public Health Implications of Interlinking of Rivers in India 10. Living in the Downstream: Development in Peril 11. Assessment of the India's River Linking Plan: A Closer Look at the Ken-Betwa Link 12. Implications of Climate Change in South Asia on Interlinking Project of Indian Rivers 13. Interlinking of Rivers in India: International and Regional Legal Aspects 14. The Indigenous Knowledge Systems of Water Management in India 15. Water-Based Cooperation in the GBM Region with Particular Focus on Interlinking of Rivers in India 16. Could Bangladesh Benefit from the River Interlinking Project? 17. Hydrological Impact on Bangladesh of Chinese and Indian Plans on the Brahmaputra.
Contact: V.Valliappan, Regional Manager(South) Taylor & Francis India Tel: + 91 80 2679 2351 Mobile: 0-98453-48248 email:V.Valliappan@tandfindia.com
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