Environment

KEY POINTS

Aravalli Range

·        It is a range of mountains running in North West direction extending for nearly 700 km from Banaskantha in Eastern Gujarat to Southern Haryana, through Rajasthan and Delhi.

Significance

·        The Aravalli Range is the source area of many rivers, resulting in development of human settlements with sustainable economy since pre-historic times.

·        The Aravalli Range has several forests rich in wildlife and with a diversity of environment.

·        The Aravallis, despite its ecological value is instrumental in shaping the climate of the region, particularly rainfall, consequently recharging groundwater.

·        It also acts as a green barrier against desertification of eastern-Rajasthan, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, checking the spread of the Thar desert.

·        The Aravalli forests are also the green lungs of the NCR region, without which the problem of air pollution would only intensify.

Illegal mining

·        According to a report of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), 31 of the 128 hills in the Aravallis have vanished due to illegal mining.

·        India’s oldest mountain range has lost nearly a fourth of its hills.

Impacts

·        The Aravallis in Rajasthan and Haryana keep the velocity of wind in check, but because of the mining activity the wind pattern is getting directed towards the plateau and that contains a lot of sand and dust.

·        Loss of vegetative cover will lead to the natural drifting of Thar Desert towards the northwest.

·        Increased desertification of the National Capital Region (NCR) and its adjoining areas can lead to more environmental hazards.

·        These include more dust in the air, greater unpredictability of climate, meagre recharging of groundwater, and drying up of several natural water bodies.

·        Earlier, the hills accelerate seasonal rainfall in the nearby areas. The degradation in hills along with changing land patterns and weather exploitation has decreased the amount of seasonal rainfall to minimal.

·        The area under perennial water courses in this region has already contracted by nearly one-third and that under seasonal water flows by an even more alarming 97 per cent.

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