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Reservoir bathymetry and riparian corridor assessment in two dammed sections of the Teesta River in Eastern Himalaya.
Fields, Alex J; Bhattacharjee, Joydeep; Chatterjee, Nirmalya.
Afiliação
  • Fields AJ; Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, 195 Marsteller Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
  • Bhattacharjee J; Plant Ecology Lab, Biology Program, University of Louisiana - Monroe, 700 University Avenue, Monroe, LA, 71209, USA. joydeep@ulm.edu.
  • Chatterjee N; Eastern Himalaya-NE India Regional Office, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Tadong, NH-10, Gangtok, 737102, Sikkim, India.
Environ Monit Assess ; 193(10): 640, 2021 Sep 10.
Article em En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34505939
As of mid-2021, four hydroelectric dams are operational on the main channel of the Teesta River in the mountainous and tectonically active Sikkim-Darjeeling-Kalimpong region of India. Riparian ecological and fluvial morphological changes after damming have not been documented. This paper describes an early study of a section of the middle Teesta River, at two of the dam-created reservoirs, just before the river enters the plains. High-resolution, multi-beam, geo-located sonar was used to map the bathymetry of the reservoirs. This resulted in the creation of 30cm-resolution bathymetric maps of the two reservoirs showing valley bottom morphology within them. The bathymetric maps were compared with pre-dam digital elevation models of the valley to create topographic change-maps. The change-maps indicate significant differences in valley morphology due to erosion and deposition processes. Land cover changes due to inundation were quantified from analysis of satellite imagery time series data of the reservoir riparian zones. Land cover change analysis showed a loss of ~ 74,000 trees in ~ 225 ha of flooded riparian corridors due to long-term inundation. The study shows that the dams have caused 7.4% of the river length to become quasi-lentic, and drastically altered sediment dynamics and hydrologic flow. Sediment deposition calculations indicate the reservoirs losing almost three-quarters of their surface areas to sediment deposition features within 15 years. This study will serve as an important baseline for future studies, and influence design and policy regarding riparian and fluvial ecosystem management, monitoring, and evaluation in the Teesta and similar mountainous river basins in the Eastern Himalaya.
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Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Ecossistema / Rios Idioma: En Revista: Environ Monit Assess Assunto da revista: SAUDE AMBIENTAL Ano de publicação: 2021 Tipo de documento: Article País de afiliação: Estados Unidos

Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Ecossistema / Rios Idioma: En Revista: Environ Monit Assess Assunto da revista: SAUDE AMBIENTAL Ano de publicação: 2021 Tipo de documento: Article País de afiliação: Estados Unidos