The report discusses the status and progress of studies of various hydrological problems associated with mountainous areas experiencing rain and snow. The principal issues related to mountain hydrology on the local and regional scales are discussed and highlighted.
The status of the hydrological studies carried out in the mountainous basins indicates a poor understanding of basic hydrological variables like precipitation, temperature and evaporation. The non-availability of long duration hydrometeorological data for higher altitude areas is responsible for this.
There is an urgent need to improve network design in the mountainous areas in particular for high altitude regions. For a better understanding of different hydrological variables, a long term operation of a few multi-disciplinary experimental research basins is required in different regions of mountain areas. Distribution of precipitation and temperature with altitude in a high altitude basin is necessary for computing melt runoff from snow and ice.
Application of remote sensing techniques has a tremendous potential to determine extent of snow and glacier covered areas on the basin scale. There is a need to study the year to year variation in snow covered areas. Apart from that there is a need to estimate the snow and glacier contribution in annual flows of the Himalayan rivers.
Furthermore, there is a need to develop a hydrological model, which can take into account the melting of snow and ice from high altitude parts and the contribution of rain from the lower part of the Himalayan basins. Impact of climate change on different hydrological parameters is to be studied for the snow and glacier fed rivers. Hydrological study of high altitude lakes in the Himalayan regions is also necessary. An accurate assessment of sediment transport by the mountainous rivers is required for the planning of water resources in such regions.
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