What should be the indicators considered for the success of the Ganges clean up program?

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What are the considered indicators in evaluation of the successfulness of the Ganges clean up program?

Which is the best way the water professionals can help the Mission? 

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25 Answers

  1. As per thr norms of CPCB every township and large housing socierty have their own sewage treatment plant. But unfortunate this is not apply after the socierty is hand over to members. They do not understand the important of this plant and they are not operative as to save expenses.

    If the vigilance term start visiting each and every socierties and found issue notice as per rule, than million of litres water get treated which is untreated drain in river though public sever line. 

  2. I think the indicators for the success of Ganges Clean Up programs should be derived both from the cause and the consequences. Causes of the pollution of the river have many aspects and traces of many pollutants of water and oxygen will display itself in many variants for days and years to come. Final results have to explain the causes of impurities and pollution near the river or around the river

  4. Growing flora or fauna around river belt, with enhanced aquatic activity is definitely the key. Reducing intoxication levels due to chemical or sewerage additions would only enable that. Blocking solid waste, dead bodies, chemicals etc., are a must, along with sewerage treatment plants from Haridwar to Allahabad.

  5. I agree with other answers in a way that the ultimate sign of Ganga restoration is a thriving diverse aquatic ecosystem, together with healthy riparian vegetation. Chemical parameters like BOD, TSS are useful as well, and thus a combined ecological and physics-chemical suite of indicators should be developed. Achieving success in Ganga restoration requires revitalization of various species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds that occur along different parts of the Ganga river system. Also, their requirements of water flow and depth (and in the estuary, salinity), that can determine environmental flow guidelines for different stretches of the river. Focusing on managing point and nonpoint pollution is another important activity as mentioned earlier by others. The dependence of human communities from river resources, as well as water demand from the river should also be documented.

  7. Indicators should not be highly academic in nature. Primarily, simple indicators should be fixed which could be understood by the local communities along the river. Such indicators could be a presence of aquatic biological lives such as fishes and other useful bacteria's and animals at abounded level. Maintaining the pond level of flow at the different time and duration. Restriction to dump the solid and industrial waste haphazardly at the river. However, at some point and reaches an advanced chemical composition and oxygen level could be checked by the scientists time to time.

  8. The primary indicator for success of Ganga clean up program appears to be Dissolved oxygen , BOD, COD, Biological indicators present in the water where as strategic and planning indicator seems to include Carrying Capacity based simulation model linked with implementable input/output mechanism, evaluation of continuous monitoring mechanism and quick response system for implementable mitigating mechanism  

  9. Hello Mr. Sarma,

    I am sending you aresearch similar to your problem. I hope it can be of help.

  10. HI everyone,

    Have you looked at the world class Healthy Waterways Model which has indicators for environmental, social and economic monitoring and reporting? 

    We launched the first Ecosystem Health Report Card for South East Queensland waterways in 2000, and have continued to deliver assessments annually. The principles of this Report Card are now being applied in many locations nationally. We recently released Australia’s first monitoring and reporting framework to consider the intrinsic links between waterway benefits, actions, condition and pressures.
    See the link here for more information: http://healthywaterways.org/report-card 

  11. There does exist many parameters but really necessary ones like the suspended solids is a must. Holistically, it is also necessary to check the portability standards of the downstream towns and cities that use the same river water. From this point of view, it is necessary to check for all the stipulated checks and limits there off as stipulated by the CPHEOO for the pre and post the city en route the town/city of the river. Furthermore, it is critical to check for the parameters of the water pre and post the water treatment at the WTPs as well as the pre and post sewage treatment at the STPs.

  12. No simple answer can be done to the question!!! Shortly speaking, the well-developed monitoring program can perfectly reflect the real ecological situation in the Gange River basin. The content of the monitoring program may vary, depending on traditions, staff qualification, preferences and understandable symbols for the local society (scientists, public and stakeholders)... For example, salmon is the understandable symbol for the Rhine River basin. Pearl bivalve mollusk is the understandable symbol for the rivers in the Nort-West part of Russia. 

  13. We should be monitoring species that are widespread and sensitive to human pressure in various degrees. Freshwater mollusks are excellent candidates: easy to find and with quite a few species in the Ganga. 

  14. Dear All, It is an important point, which needs serious thought. Thanks a lot for putting forward all the indicators as already mentioned by different participants in this Discussion, which are fair enough in the light of River Clean-up programme. However for success of such River Cleaning Programme, one should not underestimate even the self-purification capabilities of water bodies. So the Dry Weather Flow in the River is also an important aspect, while looking for all the indicator qualities. All weather ecological flow of water needs to be considered to know the dilution effects for the pollutants, if any. Another important indicator may be the pollutants loads from different outfalls into the River. For all the Cities / Towns along the River Ganga or any other Major River in India, the task of establishing the Sewerage Network alongwith Sewage Treatment Plant might not be a feasible option immediately at this point of time. So all the Waste Outfalls / Drainage Channels leading to the River should be initiated as a points of Bioremediation, which may eventually grow the scope for reuse or recycle for different meaningful purposes. Finally as a whole the the pollutants loads to the Rivers might get reduced.

    Thanking All. Regards.

  15. For measuring indicators of the success you could use the success story from elsewhere. But Ganga should not be compared with any other river as it is the symbol of the secret. Yes, water suffering is same as everywhere in the world but from the cultural perspective Ganga is different. Very simple indicator to measure is quality of water and of course to observe the behavior change of the stakeholders .. fishing is going on, farmer watering nicely, industrialist are not dumping waste directly in to the Ganga       

  16. The success of Ganga cleanup program can be gauged from DO level measurement [special reference to DO sag curve] as being done to Thames river, London.

    Second parameter can be bacterial bioluminescence testing [BBT, refere APHA book], a general procedure for general toxicity as highly sophisticated technques like GC-MS, LC-MS, UPLC and micro SPE are highly complicated and compound specific.

    Third and most important parameter is flow proportioning [more pollution load capapcity when the flow rate is high] using GPS controlled data acquisition with SCADA. 

     

  17. GIS and Remote sensing will play a important role in monitoring the success of the NMCG. Continuous, disciplined and honest monitoring of water quality w.r.t. social changes and weather changes should be incorporated to understand the drivers of pollution and to irradiate or reduce the impact as and when required. The River Ganga should not be looked as a single entity but as a ecosystem and it's cleaning mission should be community based. Hence the list of indicators and indications should be made with the help of community and various stakeholders involed in this mission. 

  18. The river can be protected from all the three aspects as Cultural, Social and Ecological. Most of us want to protect this river as for our daily needs as well as for irrigation purposes for farmers to cultivate lands whereas we professionals want this clean up program for our uses in future as a supply of water to our needs as well. 

    Cities on  the banks shall be enforced to augment their drainage & solid waste management  system strongly for improving ecological life  and shall be maintained for its cleaning generation to generations. Need of strict laws and bylaws with penalties needs to be imposed so as to protect the river source so that we can save the bio-aquatic life as well as to protect from illegal activities.

  19. River Ganga needs cleaning is the mission setup due to discharging and dumping solid and liquid waste through drains or directly and has been allowed without following any rules regulations and any restrictions to the human activities. These point sources of discharges shall be stoped immediately. Unless and until these activities of dumping solids wastes and discharging drains to Ganga are not stopped, mission clean idea will not be successful. Indicators can be set up but cleaning Ganga and keeping it Clean is beyond the human activity and approach towards it. Many of the learned professionals resource persons have detailed many indicators and many crores of funds have been exhausted for this, but did we set up any policy or regulations and penalties to stop this dumping and discharging? Water professionals are contributing their services, planning, identifying parameters and point sources, setting up indicators best to their knowledge and technologies available. Cities on both the banks shall be in-forced to augment their drainage and solid waste management  system strongly for improving ecological life of river and shall be maintained for its cleaning generation to generations. Need of strict laws with penalties (a lesson for others, no offender must be spared) needs to be imposed. 

  21. There are lot of indicators for good health of any river. Some of the ecological and social. The social come with responsibility of the people on banks of Holy River Ganga. We should understand that the rivers are not for dumping garbage or discharging human/ industrial waste for any reason. the other one is as important as social which indicate the ecological health of the river, which can be reinstate by improving the water quality by not discharging the waste in rivers. 

    we should focus on the wastewater treatments of the drains/ nala/industrial discharge before entering to river water. The diversion of drain to effluent treatment plants is one of the solution in improvement of clean Ganga. 

  22. It would definitely need a mix of physical and social indicators. Cleaning up the river - physically, chemically and biologically - could be done through tough regulatory - authoritarian - measures, but longer term this could be counter-productive if this leads to such resentment, push back and resentment from riparian land owners/occupiers that such enforcement has to be abandoned. Therefore restoring civic pride in a river has to be central - through festivals, cultural events, high quality public spaces. Perhaps another indicator is around solid waste management - targetting the reduction of intentional dumping of household and commercial waste through incentivising the use of better/more convenient alternatives.

  23. I would like to primarily focus on the chemical and physical indicators. It is critical that we primarily focus on parameters which are easy to measure. This would essentially be the 'first line of defence'. If the preliminary indicators indicate values which are not quite acceptable, these would act as the trigger that something is wrong and that remedial action is needed.

    Accordingly, for physical indicators, I would suggest as preliminary parameters, turbidity, electrical conductivity and suspeneded solids. For chemical indicators, I would suggest pH, total organic carbon and either biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) or chemical oxygen demand (COD).

    Water professionals can contribute significantly to this process. We could help to develop relationships between these parameters and those which are more cdifficult to measure parameter. Essentially, these preliminary parameters would act as surrogates to assess other parameters. This approach would result in significant time and cost savings.

  24. There are some indicators of good health of a river. These are ecological and social.. The social indicators show that the people on both banks of ganga are not discharging waste into the river even for religious reason.. It is an indicator of social concern for the health of the river. One of the most prominent ecological indicators is the restoration of riparian zone of the river unhampered by human intervention. 

  25. Following could be some of the key indicators in the evaluation of Clean Ganga Project:

    a) Number of ETPs and STPs set up along the Ganga under the proposed Clean Ganga Project;

    b) Reduction in the incidence of water borne diseases and the decline in the resulting mortality rates;

    c) Log of water quality parameters at the treatment plants after setting up of the Clean Ganga Project;

    d) Log of water quality parameters in the River and the Irrigation Canals that take off from Ganga; and

    e) Water Consumption figures at the power plants in the basin.