FLOOD PLAIN ANALYSIS OF RIVER GANGA BETWEEN VARANASI AND RAJMAHAL USING SATELLITE IMAGERY

Abstract

The spectre of the dark clouds presaging a bountiful monsoon raises hopes. for the parched land, but tregedy stalks the land when the precipitation is either too little or too. much, region—wise, as it happens as a ritual year after year. Floods are responsible for the formation of floodplains, ~ which are built of alluvial material deposited at the time of floods. Floodplains from time immemorial, have nurtured civilisation due to high agricultural productivity and other modes of easy living but due to occurrence of floods these areas are subjected to widespread destruction causing untold miseries to the inhabitants. Throughout the ages, people all over the world have been keeping a careful watch over the flood phenomenon, but the methods of predicting the occurrence of floods and estimating the damages caused by the floods have proved to be either illequipped and consuming a lot of time or barely sufficient to meet the needs of increasing population pressure all over the world. The recently acquired capabilities of remote sensing from Satellite can be applied to floodplain mapping, monitoring the floods in progress and the prediction of floods through the observation of snow—melt conditions.