Sand mining and its impact on the river health: A case study of Kynshi River, Meghalaya

Abstract

The term 'river health' is a useful and widely understood concept. River sand mining has been practiced in the Kynshi River for many years and this has posed a great threat to the health of the river with reference to characteristics of the river, properties of the water, ecological conditions etc. The present research aims at assessing the river health by taking into consideration only one aspect i.e. bank erosion or change in the channel width of the river due to sand mining. Landsat Imagery has been used of two years span and Arc Gis software 9.1 versions for calculating and measuring the width of the river.