NWNL COMPLETED EXPEDITION TO WESTERN GANGES RIVER BASIN, INDIA

February 2017 Rajasthan & the Yamuna and Ganges Rivers

PROFILE on the WESTERN GANGES RIVER BASIN, INDIA

In the 1970’s, famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson documented India’s Ganges River, portraying its unique and sacred characteristics. Today, India’s water resources are facing erratic and overwhelming impacts of climate change, affecting a large percentage of our global population since India is today’s most populous country. The melt of Himalayan glaciers currently creates devastating downstream floods, but eventually will severely reduce water resources for this heavily populated subcontinent. 

Solutions are needed to compensate for future reduced or perhaps lost flows from Himalayan seasonal glacial runoff to preserve the sacred nature to many of this critical waterway. This spotlight focus allows NWNL to address several vital watershed issues not found in our six African and N. American case study watersheds, nor in our other three Spotlight regions (California, Rome and Kenya’s Tsavo-Amboseli Ecosystem). 

The NWNL Spotlight on India documented issues of freshwater availability; pollution; water use; and infrastructure in rural and urban scenarios. Images acquired document water needs and quality from the desert villages of Rajasthan to the capital city of Delhi (on the Yamuna tributary of the Ganges) and downstream to the Ganges River cities of Agra and Varanasi.