Sajad Choppan
Amid the massive noticeable environmental changes in Jammu Kashmir, the changed colour of a tributary of Chenab river in the Kishtwar area has triggered panic among the local residents of the area.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat said the Chatroo Sub-Division of Kishtwar said they spotted the flow and the colour of the Chatroo river, a tributary of Jhelum, having suddenly changed. As the news spread in the locality, many people rushed to the banks of the river to witness a shift in its colour and flow. “The upper layer of the water seemed white,” a local Ashraf Khan said.
Ashraf, 62, said that he has never seen such a phenomenon in his entire life. “Never in life have I seen this river change its form or shape. This is for the first time in my life that I have seen the river change its colour. It is undoubtedly unusual,” he said.
The locals said that many villages are dependent on the river water for drinking and other purposes. “The water also goes to our farmlands,” he said.
A series of events of the recent past has added to panic in the locality, which includes the sinking of several households in Nai Basti area of nearby Doda, which locals claimed happened due to the unabated mining going on in the area.
Around 21 families had to be migrated out of the area, after their houses developed cracks, many of them collapsed.
Though locals said that a glacier has collapsed, the admin has not said anything as of yet.
Meanwhile, the locals approached the District administration that has deputed teams to the area. “The teams are monitoring the situation. Also, a massive operation has been launched to clear the river,” reports from Kishtwar said. Officials meanwhile told The Kashmiriyat that samples of the water have been taken for testing and the actual reasons would be out soon.
John Gardner, an assistant professor here at the University of Pittsburgh, is a lead author of The Color of Rivers, a research paper focusing on the changing colors of river. Color is a unique form of measurement and is also one of the oldest methods humans have used to examine water quality.
Advancements in satellite technology over recent decades now allows researchers to study river health using color without having to sample rivers on site. By examining the patterns of color with remote sensing methods, Gardner and his team of researchers were able to develop a database of surface reflectance, with satellite images from 1984 to 2018.
Now, what does color mean for river health? Gardner expressed during an interview that there are many reasons as to why a river may change color; changes in color primarily occur due to shifts in sediment, algae, or the amount of organic matter present.
There is no definitive or ideal color for a river, so to understand a river’s health you need to know the historical state of the river. The brown color may not necessarily signify an unhealthy river. On the other hand, a change in color may indicate healthy seasonal changes in the river ecosystem. What a change in color means is dependent upon the river being examined. A river’s history is vital to understanding a river’s health and ecology.