Fig. 1

The location maps of seven watersheds with current year stream networks (2021–2024) in the Ganga River Basin, India (a-b); the seven watersheds are classified into three categories on the basis of dominant livelihood practices i.e. agricultural: (c) Bodla (2022), (d) Danro (2022), and (e) Banki (2021); cultural: (f) Khudar (2024) and (g) Urmil (2024), and industrial: (h) Khudia (2023) and (i) Katri (2023). The shapefile was obtained from open-source website (https://onlinemaps.surveyofindia.gov.in/Home.aspx) to generate map (a). The maps were created using ArcGIS 10.2 software and the website is https://desktop.arcgis.com/.