Odisha retired chief engineer’s research harps on safe river embankments

BHUBANESWAR: As most river embankments often bear the brunt of floods, retired chief engineer of the state water resources department Gopal Prasad Roy has done a research on ‘geomorphological study of subsidence of riverbank embankments of Devi river in Mahanadi delta’.
Roy said low-cost embankments can be made in the state with meticulous planning and design. “An embankment failure during and after the flood is a usual phenomenon in every deltaic system. The cause of failures may be attributed to inadequate size, improper design and irregular maintenance.
One of the probable causes of failure, which is usually not addressed, is due to the presence of deep rooted paleochannels over which the river embankments are constructed,” Roy’s study said. A paleochannel describes a remnant of an inactive river or stream channel that has been filled or buried by younger sediment.
“Over the time, only embankment heights are raised, and sizes are increased with huge investments, but the failure continues to remain. Sometimes protection measures to the embankments in the form of sheet piling, spurs or dwarf walls are taken up with massive investments,” said Roy, who had studied in IIT Roorkee and completed his PhD on riverbank subsidence a few days ago.
His study encompassed an extensive fieldwork, analysis of foundation behaviour, flow pattern analysis using a mathematical modelling along with other studies. The state has eleven river basins. They are Subarnarekha,
Budhabalanga, Baitarani, Brahmani, Mahanadi, Rushikulya, Vamsadhara, Nagavali, Bahuda, Indravati and Kolab. The delta of three of the major flood causing river basins–Mahanadi, Brahmani and Baitarani–are interconnected.
Inspired By