World River Day and our environment

    25-Sep-2022
|
N Munal Meitei
Contd from last Saturday
A river's flow is its heartbeat. Freshwater plants and animals intimately depend upon natural patterns of hydrological variability. Naturally high and low water levels create habitat conditions essential for reproduction and growth and drive ecological processes required for ecosystem health. Flood move sediment that maintains the form and function of rivers. Seasonal inundation of floodplains and wetlands supports groundwater recharge. Hence it all depends on healthy river flow.
Healthy rivers are the lifelines of our planet. Rivers and their watersheds–and the rich variety of life they sustain– provide people with water, food, medicines, building materials, land-replenishing silts and more. They mitigate floods and droughts, support forests, recharge groundwater supplies, sustain fisheries, and provide byways for travel. Protecting our rivers is therefore the health insurance for all.
A river is much more than the flowing water but it’sthe bed and banks, the groundwater below, its surrounding forests, marshes and floodplain which are all parts of the river life. A river carries not just water, but more importantly nutrient-rich sediments and dissolved minerals that replenish the land– and the planet. Although the planet's rivers are in crises, overtime, we can take comfort that rivers have a natural ability to self-heal. We all win when rivers are allowed to flow freely.
We are developing fast, the population is exploding, pollution is growing, climate is erupting, global warming has intensified, scanty rainfalls frequently repeated, melting of glaciers accelerated, extraction of construction materials from riverbeds overloaded, mushrooming number of dams for irrigation and hydro-electricity on every lengths and release of harmful industrial waste in the rivers have made our rivers to suffocate.
In a world where our rivers and the surrounding communities and ecosystems are struggling, threatened by multiple environmental impacts, it should be our topmost priority to conserve and protect our rivers. But it seems, we are always forgetting that the rivers are also living entities and they support our entire environment and ecosystems. Therefore, with coming of World Rivers Day, let’s ensure that everyone is aware of the importance of river and let’s pledge not to do anything that harms, threatend and endanger our rivers from today onwards for the sack of future generations.