Particle size characteristics of Ramganga catchment area of Ganga River

Abstract

Rivers constitute the lifeline for any country.Both natural and anthropogenic processes influence the river processes.Recently, erosion processes and fluvial transport of materials have become a focus of reviving attention owing to their significance in land use and environmental aspects.To understand the erosion process and sediment geochemistry, more than 25 samples were collected from river Ramganga.Ramganga River originates from a Namik glacier in Gairsain village of Chamoli district in Uttarakhand lying at an elevation of 2926metres.Ramganga River flows in the Kumaon Himalayas and is the first major tributary of river Ganga in the Indo-Gangetic plains.The study area includes the entire catchment of river Ramganga covering a stretch of approx.350 km from the Chamoli district in Uttarakhand to Farrukhabad district in Uttar Pradesh before joining with the Ganga River on its left bank at an elevation of 124 meters.The river bank sediments were evaluated for their size determination by using the particle size analyzer.All the sediments were treated with H2O2 to remove organic matter; the computed results were interpreted using the statistical approach mentioned by [2].Most of the sediment were found to be of sand grade and are well sorted to poorly sorted in nature.Population of sediments varies from being coarse skewed to fine skewed.An attempt has been made to find out the factors controlling the sediment size.Multivariate analysis was performed to find out the relation of sediment size with discharge and climatic conditions such as rainfall.The results point out the role of topographical, lithological, and climatic factors in determining the grain size of sediments.