Letters: River tactics

This refers to the editorial "Too grandiose a plan" (January 24). The plan to interlink rivers to mitigate floods and droughts sounds seductive in theory but has limitations in practice. India has 2.4 per cent of the world's land area but it sustains eight per cent of the world's biodiversity, and altering the flow of rivers is not the best way to protect our forests that are already diminishing. Forests are a major source for water systems. The immediate example are the Western Ghats where the forest cover is dwindling and rainfall patterns are erratic. Rivers in south India are not perennial. However, the rivers in north India depend on monsoons and the Himalayan glacier melt, but even these flows are not assured. China proposes to build dams and modify the run of its south-flowing rivers. We could, in the long run, be left with canals and no water flows.

H N Ramakrishna, Bangalore

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