Desertification In India: Where Are Himalayan Springs?

Only 29 percent of the water in the Ganga is from glaciers till the river reaches Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh; the rest comes from the springs, says SK Barataria, member of the drafting committee that prepared NITI Aayog’s 2018 report on the revival of Himalayan springs. This shows the centrality of Himalayan springs in maintaining the flow of the mountain’s rivers, he explains. The mountain range is home to 3 million of India’s 5 million springs. Things, however, have changed quite rapidly in the past few decades.

About 50 percent of the springs have dried up or turned seasonal, says the “Report of Working Group I Inventory and Revival of Springs in the Himalayas for Water Security”. Drying up of springs is intricately linked to desertification because nearly every river in India has its origins in springs. “Any change in spring hydrology has clear ramifications on river hydrology, whether in the headwater regions, where springs manifest themselves as sources of rivers or in the lower-reach plains of river systems where they contribute almost invisibly as base flows to river channels,” .

The drying up of springs is a major worry because they were the only source of water to 50 million people in 60,000 villages of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Assam, and West Bengal.