Analysis of the tide on the Hooghly River

Abstract

The Hooghly river is situated in West Bengal, a Northeastem state of India. The capital of West Bengal is Calcutta. (See figure 1). The discharge from all the eastem and western tributaries, and from the direct head from the Ganga, flows into the Bay of Bengal through the Hooghly estuary. The Hooghly delta is part of the Indo-Gangetic delta. The harbour of Haldia is situated about 95 kilometres upstrearn in the estuary. Haldia harbour functions as satellite harbour to Calcutta; mainly coal and oil is transferred here. Many ships need to sail past Haldia to Calcutta and vice versa. The estuary of the Hooghly consists of a number of channels and bars, which can be divided into a flood system and an ebb system as a result of tidal influences in the Bay of Bengal and upland flow. A huge amount of sediment is transported through this system. The main purpose of the overall study is to predict the amount of erosion and sedimentation during or after construction of a channel across a sandbar, by using a relatively small amount of measuring results, to be put in an elementary, one dimensional computer programme. Using this model should result in an acceptable estimation of the amount of dredging material, obtained during construction and maintenance of the channel.