This project has been successfully accomplished with the help of my geography teacher Mr. Sudeep Chaterjee and with the encouragement of my parents. This project would not have been successfully completed without the hard work of my teacher and the encouragement that my parents have given me. I am obliged towards them.

This project is based on the comparative study between river Nile and river Ganges. Here the comparison is between the utilization of the respective rivers and the varying actions taken by our govt. as well as their govt. for the respective rivers. The location, the course as well as the source of the two rivers have been described briefly.

The Ganges starts in an ice-cave on the southern slopes of Himalayas some 10,000 feet above sea level.

Gangotri Glacier is located in uttarkashi District, uttarakhand, India in a region bordering China. This glacier, source of the Ganga, is one of the largest in the Himalayas with an estimated volume of over 27 cubic kilometers. The glacier is about 30 kilometers long (19 miles) and 2 to 4 km (1 to 2 mi) wide. Around the glacier are the peaks of the Gangotri Group, including several peaks notable for extremely challenging climbing routes, such as Shivling, Thalay sagar, Meru, and. It flows roughly northwest, originating in a cirque below Chaukhamba, the highest peak of the group. The terminus of the Gangotri Glacier is said to resemble a cow's mouth, and the place is called Goumukh or Goumukh (gou, cow + mukh, face). Goumukh, which is about 18 km (11 miles) from the town of Gangotri, is the precise source of the Bhagirathi river, an important tributary of the Ganga. Goumukh is situated near the base of Shivling; in between lies the Tapavan meadow.

The White Nile arises from Lake Victoria, Uganda. The Blue Nile arises from Lake Tana, Ethiopia.

Lake Victoria is 68,800 square kilometres (26,600 sq mi) in size, making it the continent's largest lake, the largest tropical lake in the world, and the second widest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area (third largest if one considers Lake Michigan- Huron as a single lake). It is the source of the longest branch of the River Nile, the White Nile, and has a water catchment area of 184,000 square kilometeres (71,040 sq mi). It is a biological hotspot with great biodiversity. The lake lies within an elevated plateau in the western part of Africa's Great Rift Valley and is subject to territorial administration by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. The lake has a shoreline of 3,440 km (2,138 mi), and has more than 3,000 islands, many of which are inhabited.

Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest Lake in Ethiopia. Located in the north- western Ethiopian highlands, according to the Statistical Abstract of Ethiopia for 1967/68, the lake is approximately 84 kilometers long and 66 kilometers wide, with a maximum depth of 15 meters, and an elevation of 1,840 meters. Lake Tana is fed by the Lesser abay, Beb and Gumara Rivers and its surface area ranges from 3,000 to 3,500 km² depending on season and rainfall. The lake level has been regulated since the construction of the control weir where the lake discharges into the Blue Nile, which regulates the flow to the Tis Abbai falls and hydro-power station.

The Ganges flows eastwards through Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Bangladesh. The Farakka is the river’s northern most point.

The White Nile flows through Uganda, Sudan and Egypt. The Blue Nile starts in Ethiopia. Zaire, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi all have tributaries, which flow into the Nile.

The Ganges basin with its fertile soil is instrumental to the agricultural economies of India and Bangladesh. The Ganges and its tributaries provide a perennial source of irrigation to a large area. Chief crops cultivated in the area include rice, sugarcane, lentils, oil seeds, potatoes, and wheat. Along the banks of the river, the presence of swamps and lakes provide a rich growing area for crops such as legumes, chillies, mustard, sesame, sugarcane, and jute. There are also many fishing opportunities to many along the river, though it remains highly polluted. Tourism is another related activity. Three towns holy to Hinduism – Haridwar, Allahabad, and Varanasi – attract thousands of pilgrims to its waters. Thousands of Hindu pilgrims arrive at these three towns to take a dip in the Ganges, which is believed to cleanse oneself of sins and help attain salvation. The rapids of the Ganges also are popular for river rafting, attracting hundreds of adventure seekers in the summer months. Muslims from India & Bangladesh often do Wudu, a religious cleansing of the body for prayer in the Ganges River.

The usage of the Nile River has been vastly associated with East and horn of African politics for many decades.The Nile still supports much of the population living along its banks, with the Egyptians living in otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara. The river flooded every summer, depositing fertile silt on the plains. The flow of the river is disturbed at several points by cataracts, which are sections of faster-flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, forming an obstacle to navigation by boats. The Sudd wetlands in Sudan also forms a formidable obstacle for navigation and flow of water, to the extent that Sudan had once attempted to dig a canal (the Jonglei Canal) to bypass this stagnant mass of water. The Nile is used to transport goods to different places along its long path; especially since winter winds in this area blow up river, the ships could travel up with no work by using the sail, and down using the flow of the river. While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the construction of the Aswan High Dam (finished in 1970) to provide hydroelectricity ended the summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil.

Ganga Action Plan or GAP was a program launched by Government of India in April 1985 in order to reduce the pollution load on the river. The program was launched with much fanfare, but it failed to decrease the pollution level in the river, after spending crore (approx. 1010) rupees over a period of 15 years. The activities of GAP phase 1 initiated in 1985 were declared closed on 31 March 2000.The steering Committee of the national river conservation Authority reviewed the progress of the GAP and necessary correction on the basis of lessons learnt and experiences gained from the GAP phase 1.69 schemes have been completed under this plan.A million liters of sewage is targeted to be intercepted,diverted and treated. In 1985, lawyer and environmental activist MC Mehta filed public interest litigation before the Supreme court of India against the failure of the government to protect the environment, specifically citing air and water pollution. Mr. Mehta visited Haridwar, where a lit match tossed haphazardly into the Ganges River caused it to catch fire, pushing local authorities to investigate a company that was allegedly discharging chemical waste directly into drains that flowed into the river. He filed the case initially against just two companies, but over the course of more than two decades it has grown to involve over 100,000 companies and 300 towns, all charged with polluting the river.

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a partnership among the Nileriparian states that “seeks to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security”. The NBI began with a participatory process of dialogue among the riparian states that resulted in an agreement on a shared vision to “achieve sustainable socioeconomic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources."It was formally launched in February, 1999 by the water ministers of 9 countries that share the river - Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Eritrea. Eritrea, which shares only a very small portion of the Nile Basin and which led a war with Ethiopia in , is not participating actively in the Initiative. From its beginning the Nile Basin Initiative has been supported by the World Bank and by other external partners. One of the partners is the Nile Basin Discourse, which is a civil society network of organisations seeking to achieve positive influence over the development of projects and programmes under the Nile Basin Initiative.