Problem of Channel Decay of Tropical Rivers and Anthropogenic Impact on Rivers: A Remote Sensing and GIS based study at West Bengal, India

Debika Ghosh, Shreyasee Das Mistry, Priyanka Pramanik, Mintu Roy, Rakhi Bairagya

Abstract


The present research highlights the problem related to channel decay of tropical rivers and the research gives special emphasis on anthropogenic impact on the tropical rivers and again it focuses on the management of the decaying rivers. To satisfy the aims of the present study, four rivers viz, river Kharkhari, river Churni, river Anjana, and river Jalangi have been taken into consideration. The present study has been conducted based on remote sensing (RS) and Geographic information system (GIS). Secondary data have been collected from the trustable sources in form of satellite images, reports etc. Statistical technique has also been used in this study to draw connection between river decay and various anthropogenic activities. The result of the research exhibits that there are drastic reduction in river length and width especially in case of river Kharkhari, Churni, and Anjana. A notable deep anthropogenic impact has been observed in decay of river Channels. Statistical technique shows that growing settlement cover, agricultural uses have negative and significant connection with change in channel geometry. The coverage of areas under the water bodies of river Kharkhari, river Jalangi, river Churni, river Anjana have been decreased from 5.82 percent to 1.94 percent, 9.63 percent to 2.44 percent, 13.51percent 5.5 percent, and 6.87 percent to 4.19 percent respectively from the year 1991 to 2025 within the 2 kilometer buffer area on both sides of the rivers.

Keywords: river Decay, rivers in tropics, human impact, supervised classification

© 2026 Serbian Geographical Society, Belgrade, Serbia.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia.


Full Text:

PDF

References


Abdelmohsen, K., Famiglietti, J. S., Ao, Y. Z., Mohajer, B., & Chandanpurkar, H. A. (2023). Declining freshwater availability in the Colorado River Basin threatens sustainability of its critical groundwater supplies. Geophysical Research Letters, 52(10). https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL115593

Belletti, B., Garcia de Leaniz, C., & Jones, J. (2020). More than one million barriers fragment Europe’s rivers. Nature, 588, 436–441. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-3005-2

Charlton, R. (2008). Fundamentals of fluvial geomorphology. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Census of India. (2011a). District census handbook: Village and town dictionary Part XII-A (20). Murshidabad, Nadia, West Bengal. Retrieved January 2018, from https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/

Census of India. (2011b). District census handbook: Village and town dictionary Part XII-B (20). Murshidabad, Nadia, West Bengal. Retrieved January 2018, from https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website

Crini, M. N., Lichtfouse, E., Liu, G., Balaram, V., & Lado Ribeiro, A. R. (2022). Worldwide cases of water pollution by emerging contaminants: A review. Environmental Chemistry Letters, 20, 2311–2338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-022-01447-4

Dragićević, S., Pripužić, M., Živković, N., Novković, I., Kostadinov, S., Langović, M., Milojković, B., & Čvorović, Z. (2017). Spatial and temporal variability of bank erosion during the period 1930–2016: Case study – Kolubara River Basin (Serbia). Water, 9(10), 748. https://doi.org/10.3390/w9100748

Ekka, A., Pande, S., Jiang, Y., & Van der Zaag, P. (2019). Understanding the impact of anthropogenic activities on river ecosystem services in India: A hydro-economic approach. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 21, EGU2019-8753.

European Environmental Agency (EEA). (2021). Tracking barriers and their impacts on European river ecosystems. https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/tracking-barriers-and-their-impacts-on-european-river-ecosystems

Gaur, A. S., & Gaur, S. S. (2009). Statistical methods for practice and research: A guide to data analysis by using SPSS. India: Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9788132108306

Ghosh, D., & Sahu, A. S. (2019a). The impact of population displacement due to river bank erosion on the education of erosion victims: A study in Jangipur subdivision of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, India. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, 46, 103–118. https://doi.org/10.2478/bog-2019-0037

Ghosh, D., & Sahu, A. S. (2019b). Bank line migration and its impact on land use and land cover change: A case study in Jangipur subdivision of Murshidabad district, West Bengal. Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing, 47, 1969–1988. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-019-01043-0

Ghosh, D., & Sahu, A. S. (2023). Population shifting and its consequences on women’s life: A case study along the river banks of Ganga-Bhagirathi in Jangipur subdivision, West Bengal. In A. S. Sahu & N. Das Chatterjee (Eds.), Environmental management and sustainability in India (pp. 411–424). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31399-8_20

Knighton, D. (1998). Fluvial forms and processes: A new perspective. London, United Kingdom: Hodder Education.

Li, P., Fang, L., Yuanzhu, W., Mi, W., Ji, L., Uixiang, Z. G., Yang, P., Chen, Z., & Bi, Y. (2022). Anthropogenic activities accelerated the evolution of river trophic status. Ecological Indicators, 136(8), Article 108584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108584

Langović, M., Dragićević, S., Novković, I., Živković, N., Tošić, R., Milojković, B., & Čvorović, Z. (2021). Assessment of the soil loss caused by riverbank erosion in Serbia: A remote sensing and GIS based analysis of lateral channel migration and soil loss. Bulletin of the Serbian Geographical Society, 101(1), 31–47. https://doi.org/10.2298/GSGD2101031L

Maaß, A. L., Schüttrumpf, H., & Lehmkuhl, F. (2021). Human impact on fluvial systems in Europe with special regard to today’s river restorations. Environmental Sciences Europe, 33, Article 119. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-021-00561-4

Macklin, M. G., & Lewin, J. (2015). The rivers of civilization. Quaternary Science Reviews, 114, 228–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.02.004

Manojlović, S., Dobrić, M., & Petronijević, J. (2025). Dynamics of suspended sediment in the Južna Morava River, South-Eastern Serbia. Bulletin of the Serbian Geographical Society, 105(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.2298/GSGD2501001M

Meter, K. V., Thompson, S., & Basu, N. B. (2016). Human impacts on stream hydrology and water quality. In J. B. Jones & E. H. Stanley (Eds.), Stream ecosystems in a changing environment (pp. 441–490). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-405890-3.00011-7

Milijašević, J. D., Jakovljević, D., & Jojić, G. T. (2025). Evaluation of water quality in the Tamiš River in Serbia using the water pollution index: Key pollutants and their sources. Water, 17, Article 1024. https://doi.org/10.3390/w17071024

Ofuoku, A. U. (2011). Rural farmers’ perception of climate change in central agricultural zone of Delta State, Nigeria. Indonesian Journal of Agricultural Science, 12(2), 63–69. http://doi.org/10.21082/ijas.v12n2.2011.p63-69

Roy Choudhury, S. (2020). Human activities put dolphins at survival risk. Environmental Sciences, Ecology, Conservation Biology and Research.

Sahu, S. (2023). River water pollution, sources, and human health effect in India. Sustainability in Agriculture, Food and Environmental Research, 12.

Sekharan, S., Samal, D. R., Phuleria, H. C., Chandel, M. K., Gedam, S., Kumar, R., Sethi, R., Supate, A. R., & Karmakar, S. (2022). River pollution monitoring over an industrial catchment in urban ecosystem: Challenges and proposed geospatial framework. Environmental Challenges, 7, Article 100496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2022.100496

Sidabutar, N. V., Namara, I., Hartono, D. M., & Soesilo, T. E. B. (2017). The effect of anthropogenic activities on the decrease of water quality. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 67(1), Article 012034. http://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/67/1/012034

Stoffers, T., Altermatt, F., Baldan, D., Bilous, O., Borgwardt, F., Buijse, A. D., Bondar Kunze, E., Cid, N., Erős, T., Ferreira, M. T., Funk, A., Haidvogl, G., Hohensinner, S., Kowal, J., Nagelkerke, L., Neuburg, J., Peller, T., Schmutz, J., Singer, A. J., Unfer, G., Vitecek, S., Jähnig, S. C., & Hein, T. (2024). Reviving Europe’s rivers: Seven challenges in the implementation of the Nature Restoration Law to restore free-flowing rivers. WIREs Water, 11(3), Article e1717. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1717

Spinti, R. A., Condon, L. E., & Zhang, J. (2023). The evolution of dam-induced river fragmentation in the United States. Nature Communications, 14, Article 3820. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39194-x

Wang, H., & He, G. (2022). Rivers: Linking nature, life, and civilization. River, 1(1), 25–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/rvr2.7

Winton, R. S., Teodoru, C. R., Calamita, E., Kleinschroth, F., Banda, K., Nyambe, I., & Wehrli, B. (2021). Anthropogenic influences on Zambian water quality: Hydropower and land-use change. Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, 23(7), 981–994.

Yang, J., Zou, C., Will, R., Wagner, K., Ouyang, Y., King, C., Winrich, A., & Tian, H. (2023). River flow decline across the entire Arkansas River Basin in the 21st century. Journal of Hydrology, 618, Article 129253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.129253


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.