Anamika Arora

This paper published in the journal Current Science presents the findings of a study has been taken up to quantify the possible impacts of the climate change on the water resources of Indian river systems within the constraints of the uncertainty of climate change predictions. The study uses the PRECIS daily weather data to determine the spatio-temporal water availability in the river systems.

A distributed hydrological model, namely SWAT has been used to simulate all the river basins of the country. The analysis has been performed to evaluate the severity of droughts and floods and thus identify the vulnerable hotspots that may require attention in view of the climate change in various parts of the country.

Impacts of climate change and climate variability on the water resources are likely to affect irrigated agriculture, installed power capacity, environmental flows in the dry season and higher flows during the wet season, thereby causing severe droughts and floods in urban and rural areas. Climate change impacts on water resources which are addressed and analysed in the present study include impacts on annual and inter-annual water availability as well as extreme events of droughts and floods.