Mahanadi River Delta in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

is a basin of deposit that drains a large land mass of the Indian subcontinent into the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

. The alluvial valley is wide and relatively flat with a meandering river channel that changes its course. The

Mahanadi River The Mahanadi is a major river in East Central India. It drains an area of around and has a total length of . Mahanadi is also known for the Hirakud Dam. The river flows through the states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha and finally merged with Bay ...

flows slowly for and has an estimated drainage area of . It deposits more silt than almost any other river in the Indian subcontinent. The area of the drainage basin is 141,464 km². The interior coastal plain has a relatively low elevation. The average elevation of the drainage basin is 426 m, with a maximum of 877 m and a minimum of 193 m.

Population density

The upper part of the

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also ...

plain is heavily populated. The population density exceeds 36 people per square kilometre, although moving toward the coast the population density falls. The climate in the area is primarily sub-tropical. Rainfall comes predominantly from the summer monsoon (June through September). The average annual rainfall in the basin is 1,463 mm. Rainfall is extremely low during the rest of the year, rarely exceeding 30 mm per month.

Notes

External links

Mahanadi River Delta on East Coast of India

Flood Forecasting and Inundation Mapping in the Mahanadi River Basin: A Collaborative Effort between India and the United States

Nasa view of Mahanadi River Delta
Mahanadi River Landforms of Odisha River deltas of Asia Geography of Bhubaneswar {{Odisha-geo-stub