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| Boats at Varanasi Ghats in Banaras, Uttar Pradesh, India (Image credit: Jorge Royan/Wikimedia commons) |
Large vessel movement through the
Ganga River as part of the proposed National Waterway-1 system under Jal Marg
Vikas Project (JMVP) will pose a major threat to the geomorphology of the river
and endanger the habitat of soft shell turtles in Varanasi Turtle Sanctuary
(VTS), claim researchers from IIT Kanpur and Wildlife Institute of India.
According to their study published in
the Current Science journal, the geomorphology within the VTS has remained
stable for the past 50 years, except for some minor changes. National
Waterway-1 system under JMVP which proposes to connect Allahabad in Uttar
Pradesh and Haldia in West Bengal, enabling the movement of large cargo vessels
through VTS, may disturb this stability, says the study.
