Anthropogenic impacts on the morphology of the Haora River, Tripura, India

Since the early 20th century the Haora River, the lifeline of the Agartala city, Tripura, India, has been intensely used by the city dwellers for fulfilling their own needs. The dwellers, directly or indirectly are not only polluting the river water, but also altering the morphology and the dynamics of the river. The Haora River originated in Tripura, India but it has its confluence with the River Titas in Bangladesh. This river has a total length of about 61.2 km among which 52 km is flowing within Indian Territory. Within this 52 km length, three long stretches have been identified, where the course of the river as well as the flow has been changed due to anthropogenic activities. Starting from the International Boundary, individually those stretches cover 5.35 km, 4.74 km and 5.47 km of length respectively. For the detection of course change of the main Haora River 1932-2005 time period has been considered based on the availability of maps and images. Major activities, responsible for such changes are construction of distributaries (canal) for diverting flood water, dumping of huge brick waste of the brick fields along and within the river and dumping of market garbage along the bank. Excepting these three stretches, some other areas along the Haora River are also noticed where minor changes in river dynamics (formation of bars, course change, bank erosion, etc.) are initiated by construction of causeways, bridge piers and other anthropogenic activities.