MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF BRAHMAPUTRA RIVER USING GIS AND SATELLITE DATA

Abstract

From very beginning, human beings have largely dependent on mighty rivers for their livelihood. Early civilizations were established and developed in and around the river valley. As the population is increasing, rivers have been playing a key role in development of a nation. Mighty rivers are used for various development activities such as irrigation, industrialization and hydropower in addition to transportation and other basic utilities. But unfortunately, some rivers have been migrating and ultimately wiping out agricultural lands and cities in their path. The migration of channel boundary characteristics are in such a way that it includes typically any change in river plan form, channel geometry with context to X-section and drainage pattern. Thus to study the channel boundary characteristics will help to understand the river morphology both in time and space Brahmaputra River is one of the greatest rivers in the world ranking fifth in terms of drainage area. It has also a very high sediment discharge ranking third in world. In the past it has registered phenomenal changes over period of time. So that is why it has been preferred for this study. In the past such river migration were understood by conventional surveying or analytical approaches, which were very tidious, slow and time intensive. With the advent of Remote Sensing technology it has become easy to acquire this information. The remote sensing technology plays a very important role in monitoring the channel pattern characteristics. Applications of this technology have resulted in timely availability of repetitive and reliable information necessary for the resource management. Similarly geographic information system is available as a powerful tool for manipulating the huge amount of data. In this dissertation, an attempt is made to understand the channel boundary migration and land form changes over different time and space. The Morphological parameters such as Sinuosity, Braiding Index, Braid Channel Ratio and Plan form Index have been computed. It shows that degree of braiding is increasing with time.