Somnath DAS
Cartographer (Contractual), Department of Geography, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, Nadia-741235, West Bengal, India.
sdas8969@gmail.com
Abhay SANKAR SAHU
Professor, Department of Geography, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, Nadia-741235, West, Bengal, India.
asahugeo@klyuniv.ac.in
Abstract
Jamuna is one of the distributary river of India which belongs to the Gangetic Delta region located in the eastern part of India and originates from the Bhagirathi River and flows into Ichhamati River. But at present the Jamuna River is continuously drying up and its flow is gradually slowing down. In this study, the morphological changes of the river from 1977 to 2020 are described through change detection technique. Topographical map (US Army, 1955), USGS satellite images of different years (1977, 2000) and google satellite image (2020) have been used for that. Again for the convenience of the discussion the river has been divided into three segments. A comparison of the course of the river in 2020 with respect to the course of the river in 2000 has been made to determine how much the river course has been damaged by humans. A large part of the river course has been occupied by man for his own needs i.e. cultivation, settlement, fisheries and even plantation of trees. Here, it shown that the course of the river has been progressively narrowed and damaged by human activities. All work was done using RS and GIS platform with GIS software.
Keywords: River delineation, plan form pattern, channel width, long profile, human activities
JEL classification: Q25, R14, Y10, Y91
pp. 115-134