News and Articles

The report is a compilation of abstracts and annotated bibliography of hydrological literature from select national and international Journals for the year 1996-97. Though a sizeable number of Journals are published in the field of hydrology and water resources, scientists involved in different studies and projects find it difficult to go through all of them.

This report is a compilation of the hydrological news in the print media in the country for the year 1997-98. The report is an attempt to put forth diverse hydrologic information and events reflecting the problems and indicate solutions for hydrologists, planners and water resource managers in particular. Five national newspapers like Hindustan Times, Indian Express and Hindu etc., have been referred to, for tracking the Indian hydrological events due to flood, drought, quality, demand supply and availability.

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 report deals with the hydrological aspects of flood disaster management, a multi-disciplinary field that endeavors to enhance the total productivity of the flood plains wherein losses are only a part of it. There are climatological and part-climatological causes of flooding and basin conditions, channel conditions and network conditions intensify floods.

The report attempts to compile all the published works on the Sagar lake in one place. This includes brief description of the historical and the geographical background of the lake, details of water quality analysis carried out in various years, present position of the lake and various schemes proposed and implemented for the improvement of the condition of the lake. 

The report is set in the context of the growing application of computers in the field of hydrology, and the consequent development of large number of softwares for hydrological and allied applications. The report is structured as a Directory and presents brief details about softwares for hydrological and general purpose application available with the National Institute of Hydrology.

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 report gives a reviewed summary of various developments in the field of artificial recharge of groundwater at national and international levels. Different methods of recharging have been discussed in detail with reference to their design criteria, application and economic feasibility. The report also provides the details of field application.

The study uses GIS techniques for spatial discretization of the Karso catchment into time-area segments to be used in numerical solutions of the governing differential equations for rainfall-runoff-erosion process. Various thematic layers such as soil, land use, slope, flow direction and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) were generated for the catchment using various tools available in GIS. These thematic layers were further utilized to generate attribute information such as Manning’s n, USLE K and C parameters for use in the rainfall-runoff-soil erosion model.

The report presents regional flood frequency curves developed by fitting L-moment based GEV distribution to annual maximum peak flood data of small to medium sized catchments of the seven hydrometeorological sub-zones of zone 3 and combined zone 3 of India. The effect of regional heterogeneity is studied by comparing the growth factors of various sub-zones and combined zone 3. The flood frequency curves based on probability weighted moment (PWM) approach have been compared with the flood frequency curves based on L moment approach.