Deccan Plateu

The Deccan Plateau covers the majority of the southern part of the country. It is located between three mountain ranges and extends over eight Indian states. The plateau covers 4,22,000 sq. km., 43 percent of India’s landmass. On the west of the plateau are the Western Ghats and in the east are the Eastern Ghats. These mountain ranges rise from their respective nearby coastal plains and nearly meet at the southern tip of India. The mountains make the southward-pointing vertex of a triangle. The northern boundary of the triangle is made up by the Satpura Range and Vindhyan Range. These northern ranges separate the plateau from the heavily populated riverine plains of northern India.

Important Notes on Deccan Plateau

• This Plateau makes up a triangle nested within the familiar downward-pointing triangle of the Indian sub-continent’s coastline.
• In the south, the plateau is mostly over 1,000 metres above sea level. In the north it is mostly about 500 m above sea level. The Deccan Plateau is higher in the west and slopes gently eastwards. This would imply that most Deccan plateau rivers flow from west to east. The rivers flowing through the Deccan plateau have cut deep valleys and divided the plateau into several smaller plateus such as the Maharastra Plateau, Andhra Plateau and Karnataka Plateau.
• The plateau is very big and there are many habitats: different Ecosystems with different sorts of vegetation, climate, geology and animals. The forests on the plateau are older than the Himalayan mountains.
• The Western Ghats mountain range is tall and blocks the moisture from the southwest monsoon from reaching the Deccan Plateau, this is the reason that the Deccan Plateau region receives very little rainfall.
• The Godavari River and its tributaries, including the Indravati River, drain most of the northern portion of the plateau, rising in the Western Ghats and flowing east towards the Bay of Bengal. The Tungabhadra River, Krishna River and its tributaries, including the Bhima River, which also run from west to east, drain the central portion of the plateau.
• The southernmost portion of the plateau is drained by the Kaveri River, which rises in the Western Ghats of Karnataka and bends south to break through the Nilgiri Hills at Hogenakal Falls into Tamil Nadu, then forming the Sivasamudram Falls at the island town of Shivanasamudra, the second-biggest waterfall in India and the sixteenth-largest in the world, before flowing into the Stanley Reservoir and the Mettur Dam that created the reservoir and finally emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
• The two main rivers which do not flow into the Bay Of Bengal are the Narmada and Tapti. They start in the Eastern Ghats and flow into the Arabian Sea.
• All Deccan plateau rivers depend on the rains and dry up in the summers.