IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop Revolutionary Model for Sustainable River Management; Check Details Here

New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati) researchers have developed an indigenous river model named BRAHMA-2D (Braided River Aid: Hydro-Morphological Analyzer). The revolutionary model developed by IIT Guwahati will help to understand the flow of large braided rivers like Brahmaputra, providing valuable insights to field engineers to design sustainable hydraulic structures like Spurs, Revetment and other river bank protection measures.

IIT Guwahati had collaborated with the Brahmaputra Board, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India for this research project. 

Speaking about the BRAHMA-2D model, Prof Arup Kr Sarma, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati, said,” Our mathematical model combines highly complex mathematical modelling with challenging field-based research on large braided rivers. With this quasi-3D river flow model, we can understand how fast the water moves at different depths inside a river and its circulation around a structure like a spur installed for prevent river bank erosion.”

BRAHMA-2D integrates a two-dimensional model of water movement with a theory about entropy, a measure of disorder or randomness. The research also delves into how features like river banks, spurs, and sandbars affect the way water moves. Specifically, it observes a dip phenomenon near spurs where the flow of water underneath increases, a phenomenon absent in points away from these structures.

The research paper was awarded the prestigious 'ISH Jal Vigyan Puraskar' (Best Paper in ISH Journal) 2023. The award ceremony took place on December 21, 2023 at the Hydro-2023 conference hosted at NIT, Warangal. The paper has been co-authored by Prof Arup Kr Sarma and his former research scholar Dr Anupal Barua.

The model was successfully validated on the Brahmaputra River near Majuli Island, the second largest freshwater river Island in the world, prone to river bank erosion.

Dr Anupal Baruah, at present working as post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alabama, USA, highlighted the model's successful application with the river survey data, using GPS Echo-Sounder for depth and Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, along with current meters for velocity measurement. He emphasized, “During my research at IIT Guwahati field measurements near the spurs revealed a strong agreement with our model results. This breakthrough can now be applied to compute the vertical velocity profile at any desired location."

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