An Assessment of Environmental Impact on River Bed Sand and Gravel Mining in Eastern Dooars, West Bengal: A Case Study on Raidak-II River

Mining of Sand and gravel is one of the important economic activities practiced in the Eastern Dooars. Ever-expanding human needs and economic progress creates a massive load on the natural asset base. Dependency on the land and geomorphological setup, the degree of the environmental effects also changes the river sand and gravel mining. The action executes environmental effects on water, air, land, River, and economic circumstances of a stream basin. EIA is a significant process to evaluate the negative (unfavorable) and positive (useful) effects of sand and gravel mining. EIA is a procedure of examining the several actions that would mark the environment based setting that has been looked on as noteworthy in a stated situation. Two distinct techniques?Matrix-based method and RIAM strategy are utilized here to evaluate the Environmental Impact Assessment of sand and gravel mining in one of the important rivers of Eastern Dooars. The present study makes clear that the uncontrolled sand and gravel mining activity is the main danger to the Raidak-II River and the antagonistic ecological impacts of sand and gravel mining command upon the minor and momentary advantages. A lot of suggestions are likewise provided to guarantee maintainable administration of this current nature's blessing.