✅INDIA’S RIVER INTERLINKING: INVASIVE SPECIES ‘HIGHWAYS’

✔️The National River-Linking Project (NRLP) is an ambitious plan to connect 37 major river basins across India.
✔️The project aims to redistribute around 174 billion cubic metres of water from “surplus” to “deficit” basins while potentially generating 34,000 MW of power.
✔️A recent study warns that connecting isolated river basins could create “ecological highways” for invasive alien species and aquatic pathogens.

📚Invasive Species Threat
✔️Many river basins currently have isolated ecosystems, allowing unique native species to evolve with limited competition.
✔️River interlinking could allow invasive alien species to move into new, ecologically sensitive areas.
✔️The Lower Ganga basin already hosts around 13–15 invasive alien species and could become a major source of invasives for the Mahanadi basin.
✔️Northeast and peninsular Indian river basins were found to be more vulnerable to biological invasions than those in Central and North India.
✔️The Western Ghats, Kaveri, Krishna, Lower Ganga and Brahmaputra support diverse habitats with numerous ecological niches and native species.

📚Threat to Biodiversity & Aquatic Ecosystems
✔️River connections may introduce new competitors that threaten endemic and native species.
✔️Aquatic pathogens could spread between previously isolated fish populations, potentially affecting downstream biodiversity.
✔️Species adapted to pathogens in one river basin may not have immunity to pathogens introduced from another basin.
✔️Such biological invasions could ultimately flatten the unique biota of individual river basins.

📌Other Ecological Concerns
✔️Transferring water between basins can alter downstream flows, sediment transport, floodplains, deltas and habitats dependent on natural river regimes.
✔️Dams, reservoirs and canals can fragment river ecosystems and disrupt fish migration and other ecological processes.
✔️Large water transfers may reduce river flows and alter sediment production and transport.

✅Way Forward
✔️River interlinking projects should incorporate basin-level ecological impact assessments before implementation.
✔️India needs specific national policies to regulate, manage and control invasive alien species.
✔️Evidence-based river-basin management should become part of national infrastructure planning.
✔️Water-deficit solutions should balance water security with biodiversity, wildlife, livelihoods, fisheries and ecological flows.

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