National Consultative Workshop on Eflows was held on the 3rd and 4th of Jan 2009 at Bangalore. It was supported jointly by SVRAJ, SANDRP and River Research Centre. Shri. L.C. Jain inaugurated the workshop and Dr. Brij Gopal, National Institute of Ecology, New Delhi delivered the keynote address. Shri. Rajendra Singhji shared his experiences about river restoration in Rajasthan. Eflows literally mean 'environmental flows' : the quantity of water needed to maintain the aquatic, riparian and dependent ecosystems in acceptable conditions.
Through the meeting, nearly 40 participants discussed various aspects of Environmental Flows, relevance of the concept in India, case studies, field experiences, difficulties in implementation, etc.
Main conclusion of the meeting was that the concept of eflows has to be interpreted in the Indian context, keeping in mind our specific socio-ecological and cultural setting. Methodologies specific to Indian river basins have to be developed, important aspect of trade offs that will occur while reallocating the resource has to be analysed and most importantly, the term eflows should not lead to a compromise, but the few remaining biodiversity rich and least-modified rives should be maintained in their natural state as an important baseline for future reference
Some of the presentations made during the workshop are attached below:
- Dr. Brij Gopal, from the National Institute of Ecology and a member in the Working Group on Minimum flows explains the basics of Eflows, its components, the various eflow assessment methodologies, lucidly. He raises an important point about the need to analyse the value of in stream and off stream goods and services of a river so that we can get a clear idea of the actual benefits of eflows.
Click here to view Presentation by Dr. Brij Gopal
- Dr. Sacchidanand Mukherjee from WWF, India presented WWFs Living Ganga Program and the component of eflows in the project. The study area is Upper Ganga river basin and WWF is developing methodologies for eflow calculation in partnership with IWMI.
Click here to view Presentation by Dr. Sacchidanand Mukherjee
- Shri. Manoj Mishra from the Peace Institute talks about the situation of Yamuna river and its decreasing flows. According to Shri. Mishra 'Abstraction of water from the river should be an exception and not a rule'. He raises a question of whether "we are falling in a trap of terms like 'eflows.'"
Click here to view Presentation by Shri. Manoj Mishra
- Dr. R. Jagadishwara Rao, Sri. Venkateswara University, talks about subsurface dams and their effectiveness as sustainable water impounding structures. Subsurface dams help maintain flow in rivers.
Click here to view Presentation by Dr. R. Jagadishwara Rao
- Ms. Lata Krishnan from the Conservation Research Group talks about the fish diversity in Chalakudy, a biodivesity rich river in Kerala, and its direct relation with eflows.
Click here to view Presentation by Ms. Krishnan
Movies from the workshop:
Magsaysay award winner Shri Rajendra Singh makes an impassioned plea to work together to protect our rivers (Hindi):
Mrinalini Varanase talks about protecting stream and river banks in watershed work
Leo Saldanha talks about the history of Bangalore's and Karnataka's water and several legal and socio–economic views therein
S. Vishwanath leads a discussion on Bangalore's and India's lakes and tanks:
Neeraj Vagholikar makes a case for working on EFlow issues in a network mode
K.J.Joy talks about the ecosystem/livelihoods nexus:
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