AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Volume 10 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.3233/AJW-2013-10_4_12
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Global Warming and Its Effect on Flow in Ganga River

Anand M. Sharan1 Manabendra Pathak2*
Show Less
1 Faculty of Engineering, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
2 Department of Mechanical Engineeringn Institute of Technology Patna, Patna – 800013, India
AJWEP 2013, 10(4), 117–122; https://doi.org/10.3233/AJW-2013-10_4_12
Submitted: 8 April 2011 | Accepted: 9 September 2013 | Published: 1 January 2013
© 2013 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

In this work, water flow in the Ganga River has been analyzed based on the available data starting  from the year 1850 to the average of years 2002 to 2006 at Farakka in West Bengal. The flow has been related  with rainfall data in the Ganga basin starting in the year 1980, and the average rainfall data in the years 2002 to  2006. The year 1980 has been chosen based on the fact that after this year the global warming trend has increased  (Adhikari and Huybrechts, 2009). The location at Farakka has been chosen to incorporate the contributions of  entire Himalayan glaciers in enhancing the flow of Ganga upstream of Farakka. This way, the results have been  presented to include the effects of glaciers melting at the source of Ganga and also the contributions of other rivers  which are tributaries of Ganga. The result shows that there is significant effect of global warming on melting of  Himalayan glaciers and the flow rate of Ganga.

Keywords
Global warming
melting of glaciers
flow in Ganga
glacier fed rivers
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
References

del, M.M. (1999). Effect on Water Resources from Upstream Water Diversion in the Ganges Basin. https://www.soils.org/publications/jeq


Adhikari, S. (2007). Numerical Modelling of Historical Front Variations and the 21st Century Evolution of Glacier AX010, Nepal Himalaya. M.S. Thesis, Universiteit Gent Vrije Universiteit Brussel Belgium.


Adhikari, S. and P. Huybrechts (2009). Numerical Modelling of Historical Front Variations and the 21st-Century Evolution of Glacier AX010, Nepal Himalaya. Annals of Glaciology, 50: 27-34.


Goswami, B.N., Venugopal, V., Sengupta, D., Madhusoodanan, M.S. and P.K. Xavier (2006). Increasing Trend of Extreme Rain Events Over India in a Warming Environment. Science, 314: 1442-1445.


Holman, J.P. (1990). Heat Transfer. McGraw Hill Publishing Company, New York.


Huffmanet, G.J. et al. (2007). The TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA): Quasi-Global, Multiyear, Combined-Sensor Precipitation Estimates at Fine Scales. J. Hydrometeorol, 8: 38-55.


Immerzeel, W.W., Ludovicus, P.H.V.B. and F.P.B. Marc (2010). Climate Change Will Affect the Asian Water Towers. Science, 328: 1382-1385.


Liu, X. and B. Chen (2000). Climatic Warming in the Tibetan Plateau During Recent Decades. Int. J. Climate, 20: 1729-1742.


Rainfall Data. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. http://www.tropmet.res.in/static_page.php?page_id=53


Raupa, B., Racoviteanub, A., Khalsaa, S.J.S., Helma, C., Armstronga, R. and Y. Arnaudc (2007). The GLIMS Geospatial Glacier Database: A New Tool for Studying Glacier Change. Global Planet, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5984/1382.full.


Report (2009). Status Paper on River Ganga: State of Environment and Water Quality. National River Conservation Directorate, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/Status%20Paper%20-Ganga.pdf


Shrestha, A.B., Wake, C.P., Mayewski, P.A. and J.E. Dibb (1999). Maximum Temperature Trends in the Himalaya and its Vicinity: An Analysis Based on Temperature Records from Nepal for the period 1971-94. Int. J. Climate, 12: 2775-2787.

Share
Back to top
Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing