Abstract
A careful reading of Bonnail et al. (2019)’s work points out some issues in the description of the Ganges River, e.g., describing it in a way that gives impression to the readers unfamiliar with the Indian rivers that it flows by the national capital New Delhi, after reading “it receives inputs from highly populated cities of India, including New Delhi and …”. However, as a matter of fact, it is not the Ganges, but the Yamuna River, a tributary of the Ganges, that passes through the National Capital Region of Delhi. Moreover, authors identify the studied river as the Ganges, whereas it is one of the distributaries of the Ganges called Hooghly (anglicized version of its local name Hugli). They have referred to the seasonality of the studied river; however, the flow of the studied (Hooghly) river is controlled by a barrage on the Ganges River. Moreover, Hooghly River receives input from its own tributaries; viz., Mayurakshi and Damodar, flowing through highly mineralized and coaliferous areas of Jharkhand state of India. Bonnail et al. (2019) have attributed the contamination of the river sediments to anthropogenic activities alone, by not evaluating likely natural sources. A correction factor for the underestimated total organic carbon (TOC) content obtained using Walkley-Black method should have been applied before using TOC values for factor analysis to overcome the underestimation issue with this method. This work intends to serve as a compendium, rather than a critique, to otherwise commendable work by Bonnail et al. (2019).
Highlights
Bonnail et al [1] have studied the distribution and short-time variability in the recent sediments near the mouth of the River Hooghly, a distributary of the Ganges River
A correction factor for the underestimated total organic carbon (TOC) content obtained using Walkley-Black method should have been applied before using TOC values for factor analysis to overcome the underestimation issue with this method
This paper, as a compendium to Bonnail et al (2019)’s work [1], intends to make its readers familiar with the Ganges River, through a brief description of its numerous tributaries and two major distributaries—Padma and Bhagirathi-Hooghly, the former being the main course of the Ganges River following its bifurcation after Farakka in the Indian state of West Bengal [2]
Summary
Bonnail et al [1] have studied the distribution and short-time variability in the recent sediments near the mouth of the River Hooghly, a distributary of the Ganges River. The authors have described the former as the Ganges River itself This could be misleading for the readers unfamiliar with the Indian rivers. Bonnail et al [1] describe the Ganges River as a seasonal river (incorrectly attributing it to Coleman [3]) They mention that it receives inputs from highly populated cities of India, including New Delhi, which might mislead the readers about the river’s trajectory. This issue has been addressed in this paper through a detailed description of the Ganges River Basin (Figure 1).
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