Geochemistry, mineralogy and nutrient concentrations of sediment of River Pampa in India during a massive flood event
- PDF / 2,512,333 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 53 Downloads / 163 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Geochemistry, mineralogy and nutrient concentrations of sediment of River Pampa in India during a massive flood event Ajoy Saha 1 & Sibina Mol Salim 1 & Deepa Sudheesan 2 & Vettath Raghavan Suresh 3 & Subir Kumar Nag 3 & Preetha Panikkar 1 & Thankam Theresa Paul 2 & Rani Palaniswamy 2 & Basanta Kumar Das 3 & Arnab Roy Chowdhury 4 Received: 27 May 2020 / Accepted: 22 September 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020
Abstract Kerala, the southern state of India, was severely hit by a massive flood in August 2018 affecting millions of people causing loss to the state exchequer. The aim of this paper was to study the impacts of this flood on mineralogy, geochemistry (grain size, and heavy metal content) and nutrient content (organic carbon, total and available nitrogen, and phosphorus) of sediment of flood affected Pampa river, Kerala. The study indicates that this large-scale flood results in a considerable reduction in the heavy metals and nutrient concentration of sediment. Frequency histograms for most of the sediment particle size showed unimodal distribution curve with the dominance of sand particles which may be due to wash of fine size fraction like silt and clay during flood. FTIR study indicates that Pampa river sediment is dominant with quartz, orthoclase and microcline feldspar, and kaolinite, along with other trace minerals. SEM study also indicates that quartz is the common occurring mineral and its shape varies from highland to downstream due to transportation. Ratio of carbon to nitrogen and phosphorus particularly at downstream stations indicates the considerable influence of macrophyte which leads to accumulation of terrestrial organic matter. The cluster analysis results indicate that there were some similarity in origin and migration behaviour among these metals and nutrients of the sediments. Keywords Sediment geochemistry . Nutrient concentrations . Kerala flood . Pampa river
Introduction Pampa, the third longest river in the state of Kerala in India, was badly affected by a massive flood due to heavy rainfall during the monsoon in 2018. The Indian government had declared it as “calamity of severe nature” which affected one-sixth of the population. The importance of this river for drinking water purpose, irrigation, hydel power generation, fisheries, and Responsible Editor: Domenico M. Doronzo * Ajoy Saha [email protected] 1
Regional Centre of ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Bengaluru 560089, India
2
Kochi Research Station of ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi 682018, India
3
ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore, Kolkata 700120, India
4
ICAR-Indian Institute of Natural Resins and Gums, Ranchi 834010, India
recreational activities is immense. The river is 176 km long with a catchment area of 2235 km2 (Thella et al. 2018; Mayaja and Srinivasa 2017). It originates at Pulachimalai hill (Peerumedu, Idukki district) in the Western Ghats at an altitude of 1650 msl and flows westwards draining through Idukki, P
Data Loading...
