India’s First Digital Twin of the Ganga River Basin | 25 Nov 2025

Why in News?

IIT Delhi, in collaboration with the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), has begun work on developing India’s first Digital Twin of the Ganga River Basin, a high-precision virtual replica.

Key Points

• About the Project:
  • IIT Delhi will create a digital twin model—a real-time, data-driven virtual simulation—covering the entire Ganga basin, including major tributaries like Yamuna, Kosi, Ghaghara, Gandak, and Son.
  • The model will integrate hydrology, pollution loads, river morphology, land use, groundwater interactions, and climate impacts to provide a continuous 3D digital representation of the basin.
  • The system will use remote sensing, GIS, IoT sensors, satellite data, machine learning, and river-flow monitoring to forecast environmental changes and disaster scenarios.
  • Benefits:
    • Improve flood forecasting, especially for Uttarakhand and the Indo-Gangetic plains, by modelling discharge, rainfall patterns, and glacial melt.
    • Enable real-time pollution monitoring to trace point-source discharges, industrial effluents, sewage loads, and seasonal variations.
    • Provide scientific support for Namami Gange interventions, including river-cleaning, drain management, wetland conservation, and biodiversity assessment.
    • Help identify illegal riverbed activities, sand mining hotspots, and encroachments..
      
• About Digital Twin:
  • A Digital Twin is a virtual, real-time digital replica of a physical system (e.g., a river, city, machine, or ecosystem).
  • It continuously updates using live data, enabling simulation, prediction, and decision-making.
  • Applications include smart cities, irrigation, transport networks, river management, climate modelling, and infrastructure planning.