Photos and words by Surabhi Nadig, for the Snowchange Cooperative. Maps by Paul Bröker.
This is the story of the Bhavani River, a 200km long tributary of the Kaveri River that runs through the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in southern India.
The Bhavani mainly flows through Coimbatore and Erode district in Tamil Nadu, running through Silent Valley National Park in Kerala and later through Mudumalai National Park. The river feeds the Bhavanisagar canal, which, alongside the Cauvery River, provides vital water to the region.
Water from the Bhavani catchment supplies water for irrigation in farmers' fields, for garden cultivation and for livestock. Local people also fish in the river and its tributaries, and harvest aquatic plants and animals. At a domestic level, the river is used for laundry, bathing and as a source of household drinking water.
The Bhavani holds deep cultural, religious, ecological and economic significance for the people who live along its course. But stressors including hydrodams, pollution and climate change are forcing people living along the Bhavani to constantly adjust their livelihoods, which largely depend on agriculture, forestry, fisheries and livestock. Meanwhile wildlife and non-human species are forced to undertake adaptations of their own.
Drawing on interactive maps, photography and field reports from along the Bhavani, this interactive story shares information about the river's history, an assessment of its present condition and the potential for future restoration actions of the kind underway in watersheds in other parts of the world.
The Bhavani: A brief history
Ecological significance
The Bhavani River originates in the Nilgri Hills of Western Ghats. It flows down the Nilgiris slopes in the form of 12 rivulets, shaping the natural environment and the livelihoods of the people that depend on it.
The Bhavani Basin coincides with the Western Ghats World Heritage Site- a global biodiversity hotspot. The region is home to over 5,000 flowering plants, 139 mammals, 508 birds and 179 amphibian species. 325 globally threatened species call this area home.
The Bhavani River itself is associated with a diversity of economically important aquatic animals - mainly fish - which form a major part of local diets and the livelihoods of fisherfolk along the river's course.
About 90 per cent of the river's water is used for agriculture. It is the main source of drinking water for parts of Coimbatore Corporation, Mettupalayam and other villages located on either side of the river.
Cultural and spiritual importance
Since time immemorial, the regions the Bhavani flows through have been inhabited by several Adivasi (Indigenous) groups, namely: the Irulas and Kurumbas, who are hunter gatherers, the Mudugars and Badagas, who are agrarians, the Chettis and the Kotas, who are known as particularly skilled artisans and musicians.
These native peoples of the Nilgiris are known to have maintained a symbiotic relationship with the region and to possess immense ecological knowledge. To this day they specialise in gathering forest products like honey and medicinal plants, and growing native crops.
Economic history
Before the British opened up trade in the region during the1800s, local economic relations were mostly based on the barter system. Since that time, the Bhavani basin and her peoples have been increasingly exposed to a globalised economic system that has brought major economic and infrastructural change to the region and the river.
During the 1950s, Canadian Government aid and technical support enabled the Indian Government to embark on multiple dam building projects along the Bhavani River.
Dam construction was deemed a national priority at the time due to soaring demand for electricity from increased industrialisation, urbanisation and railway electrification. Consequently, the Madras State Government (now Tamil Nadu State Government) supported and accommodated the development of as many power generation projects as possible during this period.
In the year 1956 the most iconic of these dams, the Bhavani Sagar Dam, was built in Erode district of Tamil Nadu in southern India. The dam is 40m (120 Ft) high and has a carrying capacity of 32.8 thousand million cubic metres (TMC)- equivalent to the cargo capacity of 1.3 million Boeing 747s.
The Bhavani Sagar is the second largest earthen dam on Earth. Constructed during the post-independence period from 1948 to 1955 at a cost of 21.00 Crore rupees ($2.8million USD), its main purpose is to store water for irrigation, generate electricity, supply drinking water, control floods and downstream siltation.
The Bhavani River Today
Indigenous Peoples and Bhavani communities
The Bhavani River Basin is home to hunter gatherer, agrarian and fisher peoples. Many of these tribes and communities reside in or around the highly biodiverse protected areas contained within the basin. They depend on the river and forest for alternative livelihoods such as fish, honey, soap nuts, broom grass. The river is an important component of the socio-ecological system; a source of livelihood and an instrument of coexistence for the local people.
Some of these communities practice forms of sustainable agriculture, including the Panchakrishi system of mixed cropping. As well as being adept at identifying, collecting and foraging a wide-range of food and medicinal plants in forest areas, women from traditional communities in the Bhavani Basin play a leading role in growing traditional food crops like ragi, chama, varag, chola, thina, kambu, pulses like thomara, amara, black gram, horse gram, groundnuts and about 63 varieties of leafy crops. Their farming systems are characterised by diversity and the use of organic fertilisers.
Farmers in the Bhavani Basin also grow tea, coffee, pepper, garlic, potato, ginger, carrot, beans, banana, mandarin orange, carnation, gerbera, sugar cane and rice
Industrial uses, damage and threats
In recent decades, a wide range of unregulated anthropogenic activities, including urbanisation, industrial pollution, agriculture and hydro-dams, have significantly impacted freshwater fish populations, water quality, forest cover and pollution levels in the Bhavani River Basin.
As a result, wildlife and biodiversity are suffering, as are the traditional livelihoods of the farmers, fishers, hunters and gatherers living in the region, and the socio-economic health of Tamil Nadu State as a whole.
Hydro-dam challenges
Hydropower plant construction has affected ecological connectivity and fisheries throughout the Bhavani Basin, with a pronounced negative impact downstream of the dams. Impacts are also particularly acute in populations of migratory fish, who are now no-longer able to swim upriver to historic spawning grounds.
Some of these impacts may have been avoidable, for example through the installation of effective fish ladders. However, very few impact studies concerning the construction of hydrodams in India have historically considered impacts on fish species and their movements.
Pollution and urbanisation challenges
In addition to the impacts caused by hydro dams, untreated wastewater discharges are a major source of pollution in the basin, with a high percentage of pollution recorded in the lower region.
A number of industries, including dye factories, are responsible for this pollution, with reports of illegal industrial discharges being released into the river at night. Urban raw sewage discharge is another major source of pollution.
Surface water physicochemical parameter analyses have revealed the lower reaches of the river to be highly polluted, exceeding the standard permissible limits of regional and global surface water quality.
Agricultural challenges
Despite the fact that, in many respects, local farmers have maintained many sustainable agricultural methods, less ecologically-minded forms of agriculture have taken hold in the Bhavani Region, too.
The commercialisation of farming has caused a shift in agricultural practices. Non-native species of trees are how being planted in large monocultural plantations. Cash crops such as dragon fruit and bananas have been introduced and are are often more reliant on synthetic fertilisers that have known negative ecological effects, including the pollution of water through agricultural run-off.
At present, field studies suggests the impacts of this agricultural shift are perhaps not as significant as those caused by damming and industrial pollution. Nonetheless, as another form of land-use change, they are a contributing factor to the Bhavani's deteriorating ecological health.
Wildlife and biodiversity challenges
Hydro dam construction, synthetic fertiliser runoff from commercial agriculture, toxic waste from dye industries and plastic pollution are having devastating effects on human and non-human communities alike, especially in the lower reaches of the Bhavani basin.
Wildlife populations and communities in the upper Bhavani Basin face other threats. Changes in land use patterns for commercial agriculture and the expansion of tourism projects are leading to extensive deforestation and greater human-animal conflicts in the upper regions of the basin.
The conversion of forests into agricultural land has increased the number of encounters between people and elephants, tigers, leopards, pythons and bears. This has led to significant wildlife casualties, as well as significant losses in forest biodiversity.
Climate change and the Bhavani
In addition to the localised factors outlined above, it has been established that climate change is altering the course of rivers and depleting water at the source of origin in the region. Unpredictable increase in rainfall in the Bhavani Basin region is causing massive floods and landslides. Rivers in the basin are also becoming prone to greater siltation. All these factors combined not only pose a threat to the indigenous communities that inhabit the region, but also to the unique ecological environment, and river infrastructure such as dams.
For dams as large as the Bhavani Sagar and Pillur dam, damage to their structure due to climate change-driven extreme weather events could lead to the total inundation and destruction of downstream villages, towns and even cities. Flood events have already become a more common occurrence in the region. When the water levels surge at the Bhavani Sagar Dam, bridges and land downstream have been submerged, forcing residents to use coracles to get to school or work, increasing the risk of death and injury.
Looking to the future
The Bhavani River Basin plays a vital role in protecting and supporting enormous levels of biodiversity. Yet throughout this region, the Bhavani's health and the health of the wider ecosystems through which the river runs, are imperilled by pollution, species loss and disrupted ecological connectivity.
In order to safeguard the productivity of fisheries and the livelihoods of thousands of people, urgent actions including strict pollution and water quality monitoring must be undertaken. Industries that wilfully and illegally pollute waterways must be brought to task in courts of law. Protected areas and indigenous territories must be respected as 'No Go Areas' for industrial activities, in line with global norms and standards. Dams should be upgraded, wherever possible, to allow the passage of migratory fish species, recreating lost ecological connectivity to some extent at least.
Beyond these urgent and immediate actions, global precedents increasingly exist for more radical actions that could be taken to restore the Bhavani River Basin at landscape-scale.
In Finland and Russia, for example, river systems including the Jukajoki, Näätämö (Finland) and Ponoi (Russia) have been significantly restored, with major benefits to biodiversity, local communities and the global fight against climate change. These more pro-active, long-term re-wilding projects have been led by Indigenous and local communities, taking into account their deep ecological knowledge of the lands and waters they rely upon.
A yearning for re-wilding can run the risk of placing humans somehow outside of nature, maybe even counter to it. But by centring the knowledge and livelihoods of local and indigenous peoples, re-wilding can lead to a working stewardship of synchronicity between humans and non humans that follows the cycles of the year, taking what the land offers, reusing and recycling.
Each ghat and hairpin bend of the Bhavani is a reminder to slow down, breathe, take in the beauty, watch the curves, the ebbs and flows of the mountains and align our ways of living with the natural laws and forces that have shaped this basin.
