Water Management Experts to discuss floods in Bihar

Arun Kumar

Patna: Water management experts as well as water activists from different parts of the country will converge here on Wednesday to discuss cause factors of widespread floods in Gangetic plains of Bihar. A workshop on “river dynamics and flood hazard assessment with special reference to the Kosi river” has been organised jointly by Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and University of Durham (UK) under the aegis of UK-India Educational Research Initiative (UKIERI) British Council, New Delhi.
Noted Water management expert, Rajiv Sinha of IIT Kanpur while talking to this correspondent said that under UKIERI project, Kosi river draining parts of North Bihar and Nepal have been chosen for its study because of Kosi being a river in the north Bihar plains – a major tributary to Ganga river system. This river has been infamous for being a problematic river system due to recurrent and extensive flooding and frequent changes in its course.
In 2008 India witnessed one of the greatest river disasters in the country in the recent history when Kosi river shifted by 120 kilometres’ eastward, triggered by the breach of afflux bund at Kusaha in Nepal. This breach had resulted in disaster by flooding of a very large area in Nepal and North Bihar affecting more than 3 million people said Sinha.
UKIERI research has specially examined the role of sediment flux in flood risk in the Kosi river. Kosi carries a very high sediment load and the construction of embankments and barrages had resulted in significant rise of river bed level over the years. The rivers is presently flowing in super elevated condition at several reaches including Kusaha, said Sinha.
According to Sinha flood management strategies in Kosi river have largely been focussed on embankments and the controls of geomorphology and sediment flux have not been suitably incorporated in such programmes said IIT Professor, Sinha.
The workshop will discuss river dynamics and flood risk factor on the basis of lessons learnt from Kosi disaster of August 2008, understanding river dynamics, drainage congestion, sediment sources and their role in flood risk, lessons from other Gangetic river systems, river training and impact of structural measures and role of local participation in flood management.
Alexander Densmore of Durham (UK), Ajay Dixit of Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Dinesh Mishra of Barh Mukti Abhiyan, L P Singh of Ganga Flood Control Commission will be prominent among those participating in the workshop said Sinha.