Page 40 - Sugam Sarita

Source: Kachla Ghat: a gathering of pilgrims for the Kumbh
festival. Photo credit: Chicu Lokgariwar

Apart from the humid areas around the Western Ghats, the region

has a mostly semi-arid and dry climate. Most of the basin’s soils are
shallow in depth and of the Entisols, Alfisols, and Vertisols types
(black soils for cotton and sugarcane). Rice, sugarcane, and oil
seeds are the three main crops grown in the basin. There are worries
about the basin getting smaller, how often extreme events like floods

appear, and how the water quality of the Krishna and its tributaries is
declining. Although there is no significant change in annual rainfall,
the observation of a large-scale decline in water flows in the upper and

lower levels of the basin has highlighted the need of managing and
allocating the basin’s water resources.

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