International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.48: 1-7
1
Research Article Open Access
Habitat Inventory Parameters and Drainage Analysis of River Siang in Arunachal
Pradesh
Das B.K.
1,
, Kar D.
2
1. Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics, Assam University, Silchar- 788011, Assam, India.
2. Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics and School of Life Sciences Assam University, Silchar- 788011, Assam, India
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2015, Vol.5, No.48 doi
Received: 18 Jun., 2015
Accepted: 19 Jul., 2015
Published: 05 Aug., 2015
Copyright
©
2015 Das B.K and Kar D., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
: Das B.K and Kar D., 2015, Habitat Inventory Parameters and Drainage Analysis of River Siang in Arunachal Pradesh,
International Journal of Marine Science, 5(48): 1-7
Abstract
River Siang is the one of the major rivers of Arunachal Pradesh and also an important influent tributary leading to the
mighty River Brahmaputra. River Siang is Hill-Stream 1
st
order river; has colluvial valley segment and pool-riffle type of reach. This
reach type is most commonly associated with small to mid-size streams and is a quite prevalent type of reach in the rheophilic zones.
Pools and riffles alternating with cascades are generally found to dominate the micro-habitat type with frequent occurrence of trench
pools. The substrate type has been found to be dominated by bedrocks, boulders, gravels and cobbles.
An analysis of the drainage network of a part of River Siang was undertaken to reveal the role of drainage water activity of the area.
A number of fluvial geomorphic dissimilarities have been identified in the area. A prominent annular pattern is observed in the
central part of the area. The total length of River Siang in Arunachal Pradesh is 293.9 km. This study revealed that the development
of topography and drainage system of the study area have been influenced by active sub-surface geological structures.
Keywords
Habitat Mapping; Biodiversity; Drainage; GIS and Remote Sensing; East Siang; Arunachal Pradesh
1 Introduction
The main threats to freshwater fishes are due to habitat
alteration, pollution, overexploitations and introduction of
non-native species causing their global decline (Nguyen
and De Silva
,
2006). The conservation of freshwater
habitats and the associated fauna has increasingly
become a priority (Allan and Flecker, 1993; Richter et
al., 1997). It is imperative to inventories the freshwater
fishes at both local and regional levels; so that, the
conservation status of the species could be ascertained
and the nature and magnitude of threats identified
(Pethiyagoda, 1994; Dudgeon, 2000). This diversity is
being eroded each day mainly because of unending
anthropogenic stress. It is not only the wealth of India
and the world but it also has serious implications on
fishery domain.
Rivers are highly sensitive to any change, tectonic
climatic conditions of an area. As such, they are the
most powerful indicator of these activities. The tectonic
deformation causes the changes in channel slope,
which, in turn, is responsible for variation in channel
morphology, fluvial process and hydrological
characteristics of a river system (Jain and Sinha,
2003). River Siang is spreading into the different
tectonic and litho-logic domain. The river system also
provides a unique opportunity to study the evolution
of fluvial landscape (Talukdar, 2011).
2 Study site
The River Siang, is largest river of Brahmaputra river
system, originates from Chema Yungdung Glacier
near Kubi at 5150 m in Tibet (Figure 1). In Tibet it is
popularly known as Tsang-Po, flows in West–East
direction. After traversing a distance of about 1625 km
river in Tibet and then it takes a turn in south direction,
enters the territory of India near Tuting in the Upper
Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh and flows through
North-South direction in East Siang district towards
Assam and finally it merges with Lohit and Dibang in
Assam and it becomes the mighty River Brahmaputra
(Das et. al., 2014 a; Das and Kar 2015).
3 Materials and Methods
Habitat inventory parameters were recorded in a
standard format (NBFGR, 2000) from each study spot
in the field itself. The geographical co-ordinates and
altitude above mean sea level (m.s.l.) of study spots
