Narmada

	Narmada
	Narmada at Omkareshwar
	Data
location	India
River system	Narmada
Drain over	Narmada → Arabian Sea
source	near Amarkantak ; 22 ° 40 '12 " N , 81 ° 45' 0" O
Source height	approx. 1057 m
muzzle	in the Arabian Sea Coordinates: 21 ° 34 ′ 18 " N , 72 ° 43 ′ 43" E 21 ° 34 ′ 18 " N , 72 ° 43 ′ 43" E;
Mouth height	0 m
Height difference	approx. 1057 m
Bottom slope	approx. 0.81 ‰
length	1312 km
Catchment area	98,800 km²
Reservoirs flowed through	Bargi dam , Indirasagar dam , Sardar-Sarovar dam
Big cities	Jabalpur , Hoshangabad , Bharuch
Medium-sized cities	Mandla
	Course of the Narmada
	Catchment area of the Narmada

The approximately 1312 km long Narmada or Nerbudda ( Hindi नर्मदा , called Reva in ancient texts ) is one of the sacred rivers of India . It flows through a valley south of the Vindhyagebirges and north of Satpuragebirges west and ends in the state of Gujarat in the Arabian Sea .

course

The Narmada rises in the east of the state of Madhya Pradesh near Amarkantak . For the first 320 km of its course it meanders between the hills of the Mandla highlands , which form the beginning of the Satpura Mountains. In the city of Jabalpur , the river is wedged by marble rocks ( Bhedaghat ), then it flows through the valley formed by the Vindhya and Satpura mountains in a south-westerly direction. The approximately 20 km long funnel mouth is located north of Surat in the Gulf of Khambhat on the Arabian Sea.

Catchment area and river system

The catchment area includes the northern slopes of the Satpura Mountains, but not those of the north-bound Vindhya highlands, whose waters flow into the rivers Yamuna and Ganges . The longest tributary is the Tawa . Together with the Vindhya Mountains, the Narmada forms a kind of border between northern India (especially the Ganges plain ) and southern India ( Dekkan ).

Cultural meaning

The Narmada is considered to be the holiest river in India after the Ganges and the Yamuna. For this reason there are many pilgrimage sites along its course (e.g. Maheshwar and Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh). A particularly pious pilgrimage is to make a pilgrimage from the source to the mouth and then back on the other side of the river. This pilgrimage can take up to two years to complete.

In the area of Hoshangabad , the geologist Arun Sonakia discovered in 1982 a Stone Age skull roof, which is at least 236,000 years old, referred to as Narmada Man ("Narmada man") and is attributed to Homo erectus . It is considered to be the oldest fossil of the genus Homo from South Asia. In the Narmada Valley, bony remains of larger, extinct mammals from the Pleistocene were secured. Thus, the valley represents the most important discovery region in South Asia for the Pleistocene.

use

The western section of the river is used not only for irrigation , but also for shipping . During the monsoon season , larger ships can sometimes sail in certain areas.

In the lower reaches of the river, a large dam with a hydropower plant with 1450 MW has been under construction since 1961 , which is part of the highly controversial Sardar-Sarovar irrigation project (see Sardar-Sarovar dam ). Opponents of this project formed the Narmada Bachao Andolan ("Save the Narmada Movement") under the leadership of Medha Patkar . The Indian writer Arundhati Roy has also stood out as an opponent of the dam project. In 1999, however, the movement's hopes were dashed by a Supreme Court ruling.

literature

K. Sankaran Unni: Ecology of River Narmada. APH Publ., New Delhi 1996 , ISBN 81-7024-765-9
Christoph Dittrich: Resistance to the Narmada dam project in India. Geographische Rundschau 56 (12), pp. 10-15 (2004), ISSN 0016-7460

Web links

Commons : Narmada - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Sharad K. Jain, Pushpendra K. Agarwal, Vijay P. Singh: Hydrology and water resources of India . New York 2007, pp. 513-559
^ National Center for Atmospheric Research: Monthly Discharge Data for World Rivers (except former Soviet Union) Inventories (CISL Research Data Archive), Boulder (USA) 2001
↑ Arun Sonakia : The skull cap of early man and associated mammalian fauna from Narmada valley alluvium, Hoshangabad area, Madhya Pradesh, India. In: Records of the Geological Survey of India. Volume 113, No. 6, 1984, pp. 159-172.
↑ R. Patnaik, PR Chauhan, MR Rao, BA Blackwell, AR Skinner, A. Sahni, MS Chauhan, HS Khan: New geochronological, paleoclimatological, and archaeological data from the Narmada Valley hominin locality, central India. In: J Hum Evol. 56, No. 2, February 2009, pp. 114-133, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2008.08.023 .
↑ GL Badam, RK Ganjoo: Preliminary taphonomical studies of some Pleistocene fauna from the central Narmada Valley, Madhya Pradesh, India. In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 53, No. 2, 1986, pp. 335-348, doi: 10.1016 / 0031-0182 (86) 90067-2 .
^ GL Badam, Anek R. Sankhyan: Evolutionary trends in Narmada fossil fauna. In: AR Sankhyan (Ed.): Asian Perspectives on Human Evolution. 16th IUAES Congress Panel in New Delhi: Hominoid and Human Evolution with special Reference to Asia: New Findings & New Interpretations, Serial Publications.

[JAS-1] A ^b Sharad K. Jain, Pushpendra K. Agarwal, Vijay P. Singh: Hydrology and water resources of India . New York 2007, pp. 513-559

[2] National Center for Atmospheric Research: Monthly Discharge Data for World Rivers (except former Soviet Union) Inventories (CISL Research Data Archive), Boulder (USA) 2001

[3] Arun Sonakia : The skull cap of early man and associated mammalian fauna from Narmada valley alluvium, Hoshangabad area, Madhya Pradesh, India. In: Records of the Geological Survey of India. Volume 113, No. 6, 1984, pp. 159-172.

[4] R. Patnaik, PR Chauhan, MR Rao, BA Blackwell, AR Skinner, A. Sahni, MS Chauhan, HS Khan: New geochronological, paleoclimatological, and archaeological data from the Narmada Valley hominin locality, central India. In: J Hum Evol. 56, No. 2, February 2009, pp. 114-133, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2008.08.023 .

[5] GL Badam, RK Ganjoo: Preliminary taphonomical studies of some Pleistocene fauna from the central Narmada Valley, Madhya Pradesh, India. In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 53, No. 2, 1986, pp. 335-348, doi: 10.1016 / 0031-0182 (86) 90067-2 .

[6] GL Badam, Anek R. Sankhyan: Evolutionary trends in Narmada fossil fauna. In: AR Sankhyan (Ed.): Asian Perspectives on Human Evolution. 16th IUAES Congress Panel in New Delhi: Hominoid and Human Evolution with special Reference to Asia: New Findings & New Interpretations, Serial Publications.