Arabian Sea

Narmada valley is facing yet another crisis beyond the gigantic dams, which has arisen due to the huge canal network of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar canals. The canals of these two dams are not yet fully planned, yet certain estimates, which are not yet final by the Narmada Valley Development Authority show that not less than 10,000 hectares of agricultural land is to be acquired, but a larger acquisition is yet to come up in numerous villages, where even a basic socio-economic survey of the affected land and families is yet to be undertaken.

The report attempts to identify sampling sites for water quality monitoring in Narmada basin. The assessment of water quality conditions over a wide area with respect to time and space requires the monitoring of activities to be carried out in a network. The location of a permanent sampling station is probably the most critical factor in a monitoring network which collects water quality data. If the samples collected are not representative of the water mass, the frequency of sampling as well as the mode of data interpretation and presentation becomes inconsequential.

The report deals with hydrological soil classification in Sher-Umar river doab in Narmada basin. The study and classification of soil has in the past been undertaken by engineers and agriculturists who have confined themselves to those soil properties and materials in which they had a special interest. The soils have also been studied by geologists, but the geological description of an area does not include the information required by soil scientists. The classification designed by soil users have tended to be of limited value to others as they were designed to serve a specific and limited purpose.

The report presents a seasonal rainfall-runoff model developed for the Saurashtra region as well as parts of Narmada river basin. The successful planning and implementation of water resources projects require reliable data on volumetric runoff. It is not feasible to have discharge stations in all the river basins of interest given resource constraints. Therefore, regional rainfall-runoff models are preferred. The utility of such models can be improved if rainfall-runoff models for different regions are developed using data specific to the regions.

The study attempts to do flood inundation and flood plain feature mapping as well as undertake river planform measurements for a part of the river reach of Satluj. The river is a part of the Indus system and faces flood during monsoon months in spite of various flood control measures that have been adopted. The vast expanse of land adjoining the river course is inundated by large floods.

The study undertakes hydrological land use mapping in Narmada basin from Jabalpur to Hoshangabad by using various methods right from empirical formulae to Soil Conservation Services Curve Number (SCS-CN) method for design discharge computations and continuous runoff modeling. The SCS Curve Number method is used to derive an empirical relationship of the catchment hydrological variables and based on this the dimensional unit hydrograph is prepared and continuous runoff modeling done.

The study develops a regional hydrological model for estimating flow characteristics at ungauged sites of Narmada basin using climatological, hydrological and morphological variables. The term low flow is broadly used to describe stream flows that are significantly below average or below normal flow levels.

The study carries out sediment yield estimation for the Shakkar catchment of the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh and successfully implements a methodology for prioritization using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and image processing on ERDAS and ILWIS software.

In this study, a spatially distributed unit hydrograph was developed for the Kolar basin in Madhya Pradesh using Arc Info GIS package. The one-hour distributed hydrograph was determined for the basin using S hydrograph technique from the time-area diagram of the basin.

The report uses the Soil Conservation Services (SCS, 1956), Curve Number (SCS-CN) method, a widely used event based rainfall-runoff method for simulating daily rainfall-runoff data of three catchments, viz., Ramganga and Hemavathi catchments of the sub-humid regions and Sabarmati catchment of the arid region of India.

In the model formulation, the daily variation of parameter, potential maximum retention is governed by the known antecedent moisture condition. Hydrologic simulation studies provide a useful and important input to water resources planning and watershed management practices.