Soil Conservation Engineering- Soil Erosion and its Prevention in Punjab

Abstract

The rivers of the Punjab, with the ex- ception of the Ghaggar, are. snow-fed, but there are innumerable tributaries, draining the Shivalik hills, which border the Punjab in the north-east, which are purely storm water torrents and are popularly called chos. Normally these are dry, but during the rainy season they swell to enormous proportions and transport huge quantities of debris and silt, which they not only deposit on the fertile fields along their course but also pour large volumes into the river.

Broadly speaking the course of a river of the Punjab can be divided into the following reaches : Mountainous Reach — This reach is a suc- cession of falls, rapids and pools along which the river crashes at terrific velocity, breaking, cutting and grinding hard rocks and scoop- ing softer materials. All the debris, that it breaks and gathers, rolls at considerable speed along its bed and is carried along hundreds of miles, specially in the rainy season, when huge volumes of water are carried by the river and its tributaries, dash- ing through the channels which they have carved for themselves, working incessantly for centuries. Deltaic Reach — After leaving the hills, before it enters the plains, the river forms a delta for itself. The huge quantities of rolling material are deposited in this reach and the river splits up into a number of channels. The pattern of delta channels changes from year to year and is never the same. It is principally in this zone that there is danger of river changing its course. It is here that through a succession of rapids, the river flattens its slope and loses its velocity before entering the plains. etc