Geomorphic Effects of Monsoon Floods on Indian Rivers

The southwest summer monsoon contributesthe bulk of India's rainfall. Consequently,almost all the geomorphic work by the rivers is carried out during the monsoonseason in general and the monsoon floods in particular. Indian rivers arecharacterized by high average flood discharges and large temporal variability. Thereis also significant spatial variation in the magnitude, frequency and power of floods, on account of regional variations in monsoon rainfall, basin characteristics andchannel geometry. As a result, the channel responses and the geomorphic effects also varyspatially. This paper describes the hydrological and geomorphological aspects, as well asthe geomorphic effects of monsoon floods in the Indian rivers. The geomorphic effects of floods are most impressive only in certainareas – the Himalaya, the Thar Desert, and the Indus-Ganga-Brahmaputra Plains. There are numerous instances of flood-induced changes in the channel dimension,position and pattern in these areas. In the Ganga-Brahmaputra Plains, the annualfloods appear to be geomorphologically more effective than the occasional large floods.In comparison, the rivers of the Indian Peninsula are, by and large, stable and thegeomorphic effects of floods are modest. Only large-magnitude floods that occur at aninterval of several years to decades are competent to modify the channel morphology in asignificant way. A synthesis of the various case studies available from the Indianregion indicates that often the absolute magnitude of a flood is not as important withrespect to the geomorphic effects as the flow stress and competence.