CHAPTER II

RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents related literatures and studies. It includes local and

international publications, unpublished materials, and other similarly verifiable

sources. Similarities and differences of the studies conducted and how these

findings support the present study is also presented.

Related Literature

I. International

The article entitled “Environmental Impact of Sand Mining in Tamiraparani

River, South Tamilnadu” is based on the direction from the High Court of

Madras to the junior author. Tamiraparani River is a minor basin with a length

of 120 km and it is the only perennial system without any interstate disputes in

water sharing. Moreover, it is the life line for drinking, power generation,

agriculture and industrial use for more than three districts in south Tamil Nadu.

Sand and gravel have been mined commercially from active channel. Mining

of sand includes the processes of skimming, dry and wet pool mining, bar

excavation and channel wide instream mining. The commercial mining of sand

causes various ecological impacts from bank erosion to ground water

depletion. The assessment from five sand quarries from the middle to lower

reaches of Tamiarparani River showed that instream, floodplain and terrace

mining heavily damaged the ecosystem structure and function thereby affecting

the cleansing capacity of rivers, lowering of ground water level, the damage to