Mahanadi River edit
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The Mahanadi River ("great river") is a river in eastern India. It is one of the longest rivers in Indiacitation needed and drains a substantial part of peninsular India. The Mahanadi rises in the highlands of Chhattisgarh. It flows through Orissa to reach the Bay of Bengal. The length of the river is about 860 km. Its drainage basin is shared by Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Orissa.
Near the city of Sambalpur, the world's largest earth dam - the Hirakud Dam - empounds the river. High towers, Gandhi Minar and Ashok Minar, are placed at either end for inspection of the dam.
The Mahanadi rises in Dhamtari District of Chhattisgarh. The fertile plains of the Mahanadi valley are home to intensive rice cultivation. The Mahanadi and Brahmani rivers together form a large delta where they meet the Bay of Bengal. The city of Cuttack lies at the head of this delta. This delta houses one of the largest mangrove forests in peninsular India, and is a major rice producing area of the eastern coast of India.
The Mahanadi River irrigates a fertile valley where crops of rice, oilseed, and sugarcane are grown.
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Mahanadi River Delta extends over an area of 0.1 km, which is nearly 4.3% of the total geographical area of the country. The basin lies in the states of Chhattisgarh (75,136 km²), Orissa (65,580 km²), Bihar (635 km²) and Maharashtra (238 km²) for a total of 141589 km². Its main tributaries are the Seonth, the Jonk, the Hasdeo, the Mand, the Ib, the Ong, and the Tel.
Physiographically, the delta can be divided into four regions, namely, the Northern Plateau, the Eastern Ghats, the Coastal Plain and the Erosional Plains of Central Table Land. The first two are hilly regions. The coastal plain is the central interior region of the delta, traversed by the river and its tributaries. The main soil types found in the basin are red and yellow soils, mixed red and black soils, laterite soils and deltaic soils.
India is setting up a third Antarctic base in Larsemann Hills that, 120 million years ago, was contiguous with India's eastern coast. One of the main aims of this base is to investigate how India broke away from Antarctica and Larsmann Hills could reveal vestiges of the Mahanadi river which flowed there about 130 million years ago when the continent was part of Gondwanaland.
River Bhargabi is one of the longest river in Orissa. It supplies all the water for the Puri district and other districts nearby.
In September 2008 a flood in the Mahanadi Delta affected half the districts of Orissa. 16 people are feared dead, 80,000 have been evacuated, and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. The state government asked the Central Government to name the Orissa Flood a national disaster and provide Rupees 1500 crore (INR 15 billion) as relief. The most affected districts of Orissa is Cuttack,Jagatsingpur,Puri,Kendrapara,Boudh & Angul. At Tikarapada In Angul distric about 3000 people were evacuated.
An average annual surface water potential of 66.9 km³ has been assessed in this basin. Out of this, 50.0 km³ is utilisable water. Culturable area in the basin is about 80,000 km², which is 4% of the total culturable area of the country.
Present use of surface water in the basin is 17.0 km³. Live storage capacity in the basin has increased significantly since independence. From just about 0.8 km³ in the pre-plan period, the total live storage capacity of the completed projects has increased to 8.5 km³. In addition, a substantial storage quantity of over 5.4 km³ would be created on completion of projects under construction. Additional storage to the tune of over 11.0 km³ would become available on execution of projects under consideration. The hydropower potential of the basin has been assessed as 627 MW at 60% load factor.Kendrapara district was most efficted in 2008 flood.
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