Cauvery River Basin
The Cauvery River has its origin at Talacauvery at an elevation of about 1341 m and is located in the Brahmagiri Hills in the Western Ghats, Kodagu district, Karnataka. It lies between the eastern longitudes of 75°27’ E - 79°54’ E and the northern latitudes of 10°9’ N - 13°30’ N. The basin trends in a NW-SE direction with a total area of approximately 85,626 sq. km2 which constitutes 2.7% of the Country’s geographical area.
Western Ghats / ‘Sahayadri’ Range are highly heterogeneous hill chain in the form of an escarpment which runs parallel to the west coast of India and encompass large tracts of moist tropical forests and montanne cloud forests. Western Ghats have high biodiversity and are the “hottest hotspots” for tropical…show more content… The Cauvery Basin consists of pockets of heterogeneous and highly diverse forest types comprising of evergreen, semi-evergreen, deciduous, thorn and scrub forests including shola forests interspersed with grasslands. The Cauvery River Basin lies in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats which results in a rainfall gradient that ranges from humid (>1200 mm) to semi-arid (>800 mm) to arid regions (<600…show more content… Srirangapatna, Near Mysore, and Srirangam at Trichy are examples of historical and cultural sites built upon river islands. Different small water channel form which then flow around these islands, which unite farther downstream with many crisscrossing smaller channels which resemble hair braids. Near Grand Anaicut, Trichy the Cauvery streamflow is distributed into numerous irrigation canals which lead to the formation of a large number of distributaries forming a wide delta before joining the Bay of