Polavaram Project - EIA Study

The Polavaram project under construction is a multipurpose project located on river Godavari in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India. The project would also provide water to augment the water demand in the Krishna basin, Andhra Pradesh. However, this project once materialized is likely to submerge large extent of nearby project area causing ecological imbalance to the fragile Eastern Ghat ecosystem. An attempt was made to estimate the area of submergence through remote sensing studies. Analysis of the DEM indicated that an area of 58,658 ha would be submerged under the Polavaram project considering the dam height to be of 45.72m above mean sea level. This submergence zone thus estimated was used for assessing the various land use/land cover, geology, geomorphology, soil and slope characteristics of the study area; flora and fauna; socioeconomic and human subsystem. A Database was created at micro level to represent non spatial attribute data for various aspects of land resources, biological (flora & fauna) and socio-economic costs of the study area. Further, the study suggests feasible and amicable strategies for the improvement of the overall situation at grass root levels.