Preface

India is endowed with rich water resources. Approximately 45,000 km of riverine systems are intertwined across the length and breadth of the country. These include the Himalayan snow-fed and peninsular rain-fed rivers. There are 14 major rivers in India of which 4 are perennial. Ganga, Brahmaputra, Brahmani, Cauvery, Godavari, Indus, Krishna, Mahanadi, Mahi, Narmada, Periyar, Sabarmati, Subarnarekha and Tapti cover 83% of the drainage basin and account for 85% of the surface flow. Among them, the River Ganga occupies a unique position in the history, culture, religion and civilization of the Indian subcontinent. The drainage basin of the Ganges covers one of the most populated regions of the world where the Indo-Aryan civilization has flourished for many centuries and forms the lifeline of the country. These major rivers of India harbour extremely rich biodiversity and contribute significantly to the food security and livelihood of India.In recent decades, India's water resources, and especially her rivers, have been exposed to various anthropogenic stresses. Human greed and abuse have degraded these ecosystems significantly; human impacts include the construction of numerous multipurpose reservoirs for irrigation, water supply, and hydro-power, as well as many dams for water diversion. Several long reaches of rivers passing through urban areas remain completely dry for large parts of the year, except during monsoon, because of these uses. These flood plains are lost and even river beds are cultivated during dry periods. As a result of such habitat degradation, fish catches have greatly declined, the size of important indigenous fish species has decreased and fish recruitment has been seriously affected.It is indeed a matter of extreme concern that out of the world's 30 river basins identified as global level priorities for maintenance and protection of aquatic biodiversity, 9 of these are Indian: namely Brahmaputra, Cauvery, Ganges, Godavari, Indus, Krishna, Mahanadi, Narmada, Pennar and Tapi. This situation has developed due to the inability of most resource managers to adopt a comprehensive and holistic approach to balance the demands of ecosystem health against the equally compelling needs of other stakeholders. Consequently, in order to evaluate the deteriorating situation, a special symposium entitled ‘Indian River Systems’ was organized jointly by Central Indian Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI) and the Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management Society, Canada (AEHMS) during the 8th Indian Fisheries forum held in Kolkata, 2008. At the symposium, it was concluded that although the CIFRI – a premier Indian research organization – has generated a valuable, long-term database dealing with the ecology, biodiversity, fisheries, health, and management of the major rivers, the data are fragmented and scattered. Furthermore, it was suggested that a concerted effort be made to gather, compile and integrate the available literature and data on the major rivers which will lead to a realistic and scientific assessment of the current status of their health. It was recommended that the database be organized and assessed with an ecosystemic and integrated approach. Consequently, following the 2008 fisheries forum, the AEHMS invited various researchers working on the Ganges to submit papers to the journal, Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management (AEHM). Following peer review, a compendium of five articles entitled “Ecosystem health of the majestic river Ganges” was published in AEHM (AEHMS, 2010).The AEHMS-CIFRI collaboration has continued to be productive. Subsequently, a series of activities has been organized to maintain the momentum, and plans for two more publications were drawn up following an organizational meeting held in New Delhi during February 2011: Ecology of the Mighty Ganges: Health, Fisheries and ManagementHealth and fisheries of the major river ecosystems of IndiaIn order to proceed with these planned publications, an “authors’ workshop” entitled ‘Ecosystem Health of Major Rivers of India: River Ganges Case Study’ was organized jointly by CIFRI-AEHMS in Barrackpore during April 2012, where scientists working on various rivers presented their research findings. The organizers felt that it would be useful to organize a special all-India symposium for wider participation of scientists from across the country. Consequently, CIFRI, AEHMS & Inland Fisheries Society of India (IFSI) were pleased to jointly sponsor a Symposium entitled ‘Health and fisheries of major river ecosystems of India with emphasis on River Ganges’ (Conveners: A. Sharma and M. Munawar) in celebration of a great event: the 100th Indian Science Congress in Kolkata. The response to the symposium was overwhelming with the presentation of 40 papers during the two days of deliberations. It provided an excellent opportunity for a top-down assessment of the status of the ecosystem health of Indian rivers. As a result of the above activities and several follow-up meetings, papers on various rivers of India were submitted for publication. As indicated above, two publications have been planned based on the papers received on the major rivers of India, namely a special issue and a book (in progress). The current issue consists of 11 articles dealing with a wide range of topics. We hope that the special issue will broaden our understanding of the ecology, biology and management of the mighty Ganges River and will be useful to students, researchers, managers and well-wishers of River Ganges.We are grateful to Drs. C.K. Minns (Scientist Emeritus, Fisheries & Oceans Canada) and N. Mandrak (University of Toronto) for their continuing support and advice towards the development of this special issue. We sincerely thank over 30 international referees for their high quality reviews, constructive criticisms and revisions which enhanced the quality of all articles. We take this opportunity to thank the AEHMS staff: Jennifer Lorimer, Robin Rozon, Susan Blunt and Lisa Elder, and also Mark Fitzpatrick (Fisheries & Oceans Canada) who patiently processed the manuscripts and always tried to raise the quality of articles a notch higher. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Drs. Dilip Kumar (Senior Emeritus scientist) and Sajina Ali (CIFRI).Dr. Anil P. Sharma, Director CIFRIBarrackpore, Kolkata, IndiaDr. M. Munawar, President and Chief EditorAEHMS, Burlington, Ontario, Canada

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