A purely technical matter has turned into an emotional and political issue between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The entire fight is centred on whether the water level in the Mullaperiyar reservoir should be raised by two meters.
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Muddy questions about Mullaperiyar dam: "The silt building up in the reservoir cannot be ignored for any decision on the dispute."
In any dam, silting - a natural hydrological and sedimentological process by which sediments flowing from the upstream catchment area in the river water get deposited in the reservoir - reduces the life of a reservoir as well as its storing capacity. The cumulative accumulation of silt in the reservoir is not dangerous to the stability of the dam as it does not exert any dynamic pressure on the body of the dam.
With the passage of time, due to siltation, the storing capacity and consequentially the availability of water will continue to decrease and the demand to raise the water level would crop up again. If any decision is taken ignoring the silting of the reservoir, that decision is certainly not going to solve the Mullaperiyar problem.
In any dam, silting - a natural hydrological and sedimentological process by which sediments flowing from the upstream catchment area in the river water get deposited in the reservoir - reduces the life of a reservoir as well as its storing capacity. The cumulative accumulation of silt in the reservoir is not dangerous to the stability of the dam as it does not exert any dynamic pressure on the body of the dam.
With the passage of time, due to siltation, the storing capacity and consequentially the availability of water will continue to decrease and the demand to raise the water level would crop up again. If any decision is taken ignoring the silting of the reservoir, that decision is certainly not going to solve the Mullaperiyar problem.
