Sand mining and river bottom-dredging: impacts on river ecology and the environment East Zone outlook Nachiket Kelkar 1 1 Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, India India Rivers Forum discussion series: “Is sand mining killing our rivers?” 21 st November 2020
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Sand mining and river bottom-dredging: impacts on river ecology and the environment
East Zone outlook
Nachiket Kelkar1
1Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, India
India Rivers Forum discussion series: “Is sand mining killing our rivers?” 21st November 2020
Map courtesy: Tarun Nair
Subarnarekh, Brahmani-Baitarani, and allied basins
Dredging can impair the pollution buffering capacity of sediment deposits to adsorb heavy metals and biological contaminants (Grimes 1975, Eggleton & Thomas 2004, Höss et al. 2010, Singh et al. 2018)
Mayukh Dey
Effects on vegetation
• Detrimental effects on aquatic plants
• Increase in riparian tree cover after floodplain-terrace mining (Koehnken et al. 2020)
• Changes in riparian cover affect habitat of sand-dwelling species
Impacts on invertebrates and plankton
• Zooplankton species richness and abundance declined by 15% to 50% at high levels of sand mining and wave-induced bank erosion in the Ganga and Hooghly Rivers (Prabhakar et al. 2019, CIFRI studies)
• Similar impacts likely due to mining or dredging disturbances on insects, freshwater mussels, prawns, shrimps (Meng et al. 2018, Brim Box & Mossa 2008)
• Cascading effects on river trophic webs and ecosystem services (esp. fisheries)
Impacts on fish and fisheries
• Changes in turbidity, dissolved oxygen, fine sediment flux, and disturbance to gravel badly affect adult fish, eggs, larvae (Bellamy et al. 1992, Arun et al. 2006, Kemp et al. 2011, Padmalal & Maya, 2014, Koehnken et al. 2020)
• Floodplain mining impacts on lateral movements and physiology of young fish, deformities and injuries (Wolter et al. 2004)
Example. Gandak River: capture of aquarium fish species (loaches, gouramis) and aggregate removal by small-scale fishers
Impacts on turtles and crocodiles
Gharial Narrow-headed Softshell Turtle
Impacts on breeding success as floodplain nesting sites are directly disturbed by sand mining (Lang et al. 2019)
Changes in thermal regimes and water turbidity
Tarun Nair Wikipedia commons
Impacts on bird nesting sites and habitats
• Threatened species of sand-nesting terns and Indian skimmer (e.g. Mahanadi river; Kar & Debata 2019)
• Sediment mining may threaten habitats of the Black-necked Crane and White-bellied Heron in NE India (e.g. Menzies et al. 2020)
Indian Skimmer Black-bellied Tern Black-necked Crane
Smooth-coated otters use sand bars and islands for resting, play, and breeding
Jagdish Krishnaswamy
Ganges River dolphin(India’s National Aquatic Animal)
16Sushant Dey
Dredging impacts on river dolphins
• Avoidance of dredged channels by dolphins
• Combined stress from sediment disturbance and noise, which can interfere with feeding activity (Todd et al. 2015)
- Subdued and elusive surface activity and longer diving patterns (e.g. at Bhagalpur, Dey et al. 2019)
• In-river habitat loss
• Detailed studies urgently needed (Todd et al. 2015, Fisher et al. 2018)
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Sand mining and Ganges river dolphins
• Studies by Wildlife Institute of India noted a reduction in dolphin habitat use and fishing activity, after increase in sand mining (2016-2019), in Kulsi River
• Similar impacts on river dolphins in the Barak River (Choudhury et al. 2019)
Mayukh Dey
Taxa Invertebrates Fishes Reptiles Birds Mammals
Mode of sand mining
In-stream mining
Plankton, crustaceans, insects ✔
All fish ✔
Turtles ✔Crocodiles ✔
Waterfowl ✔
River dolphins ✔
Floodplain mining
Shrimps ✔ Younger fish ✔
Turtles ✔Crocodiles ✔
Sand-nesting birds ✔
Otters ✔
Terrace mining
Insects ✔ ✗? ✗? Sand-nesting birds ✔
Otters ✔
Variable impacts of sand mining on aquatic species
River biodiversity: current status
San
d m
inin
g/d
red
gin
g im
pac
t
Low
High
High
Mahanadi
GandakBrahmaputra
Son
TeestaDamodar
Hooghly
Sundarbans
Kosi
Other rivers in NE India
Mitigation and restoration
• Dam re-operations for ecological flows: adequate release of downstream flows might reduce need for dredging
• Bubble curtains and technical options to reduce dredging impacts
• Sand mining site restoration and spatial zoning
• Small-scale mining?
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(Bridges et al. 2008, Gavriletea 2017, Torres et al. 2017, Koehnken & Rintoul 2018, Fisher et al. 2018, Koehnken et al. 2020)
Loss of connectivitySediment removal and de-siltation upstream of dams and barrages: (e.g. Farakka barrage)
Thakur et al. (2011), Natural Hazards
Sonkar & Gaurav (2020)River Research and Applications
Artisanal sand mining: is small really beautiful?
• Demands for sand mining rights: traditional sand harvesting