Uttar Pradesh: Rivers, lakes and dams

Uttar Pradesh lies in the Ganga basin, and the Ganga with its tributaries forms the master drainage of the state. The state's climate action plan estimates total water resources at about 179 BCM and ranks UP first in India for replenishable groundwater. The state irrigation department maintains a large network of dams, barrages and canals.

Rivers and Drainage

• Master drainage: the river Ganga and its tributaries.
• Main left-bank tributaries: Ramganga, Ghagra and Gomti.
• Main right-bank tributary: Yamuna.
• Rivers listed by the state portal: Ganga, Yamuna, Gomti, Ram Ganga, Ghagra, Betwa and Ken.
• Physiography: two units, the Central Ganga Plain and the Bundelkhand and Vindhyan Plateau.
• Usable water is much less than the total because surface storage is often not feasible on the flat terrain.

Water Resources

• Total: about 179 BCM = 109.19 BCM surface water + 69.92 BCM groundwater.
• Use: about 92.2% for irrigation, 5.2% domestic and 2.6% industrial and commercial.
• Demand vs supply: total demand 105.96 BCM against supply of 77.99 BCM. Irrigation demand may rise from 97.8 BCM to 109.46 BCM in a business-as-usual scenario.
• Irrigation potential: 95.2 lakh ha created from surface water, but 65.3 lakh ha utilised.
• Infrastructure: 132 dams, 20 barrages and 33,848 tube wells.

Groundwater

• UP ranks first with a 16.2% share of India's replenishable groundwater (432 BCM), per CWC (2019).
• Recharge about 70 BCM.
• Annual extractable resource: 66.88 BCM; current annual extraction: 46.03 BCM; stage of extraction: 68.83%.
• Assessment units: 830 (820 blocks and 10 cities): 91 over-exploited, 48 critical, 151 semi-critical and 540 safe.
• Quality problems: fluoride in districts such as Agra, Aligarh, Etah, Firozabad and Mathura; arsenic in Balia, Balrampur, Gonda, Gorakhpur and Lakhimpur Kheri; salinity in Agra, Hathras and Mathura; nitrate in over 40 districts.

Major Dams (Irrigation Department list)

• Ramganga Dam (near Dhampur, Bijnor): Earth & Rockfill, completed 1974, height 127.50 m.
• Rihand (Renukoot) on the Rihand River: PG dam, completed 1962, height 91.46 m.
• Matatila Dam (Jhansi) on the Betwa: completed 1964, height 45.72 m.
• Meja (Mirzapur) on the Belan: completed 1987, height 40.00 m.
• Rajghat (Lalitpur) on the Betwa River: completed 1999, height 39.9 m.
• Obra (Robertsganj) on the Rihand: completed 1970, height 29.23 m.
• Nagwa (Robertsganj) on the Karmnasa: completed 1950, height 20.31 m.
• Barwa Sagar (Jhansi): completion year listed as 1694.
• Pahari Dam (Jhansi) on the Dhasan: completed 2017.

Major Barrages

• Girja Barrage: on the Ghaghra in Bahraich; 26 gates of 18.00x7.80 m and 9 of 18.00x8.80 m.
• Madhya Ganga Barrage: on the Ganga in Bijnor.
• Narora Barrage: on the Ganga in Aligarh district (under UPWSRP-II).
• Kanpur Barrage (Lav Kush): on the Ganga at Kanpur.
• Gokul Barrage: on the Yamuna at Mathura; Gomti Barrage: on the Gomti at Lucknow (10 gates).
• Sharda Barrage (Lakhimpur Kheri) and Banbasa Barrage (Champavat) on the Sharda.
• Saryu Barrage (Bahraich), Rapti Barrage (Shravasti) and Ban Ganga Barrage on the Rapti (Siddharth Nagar).
• The department also lists Bhimgoda (Haridwar, Uttarakhand) and Okhla (New Delhi) barrages.

Canal Network (as on 31.03.2014)

• Total canal length: 74,248.43 km: 73,051.85 km within the state and 1,196.58 km in other states.
• Sharda Sahayak: 14862.43 km.
• Ganga: 10736.92 km (including other state).
• Sharda: 9750.25 km (including other state).
• Ramganga: 8329.78 km.
• Betwa: 6635.64 km; Purviganga: 3240.78 km.