Climate and Weather

This status report on "Hydrology of Arid Regions in India" compiles the scattered information on the subject. It is divided into nearly fourteen categories, covering sections like geology, rainfall, desertification of arid lands, position of groundwater in arid & semi-arid regions and dune landforms. 

The report attempts to provide solutions to the twin problems of waterlogging and salinity in the irrigated command area through various drainage or traditional reclamation measures viz controlling the intensity of irrigation, providing drainage system, lining, improving natural drainage, preventing seepage or adopting modern technology for application of water.

The report, a part of the regular work programme of the Flood Studies Division of the National Institute of Hydrology presents a literature review on modeling debris flow. Occurrence of debris flows is a common natural phenomenon and denotes the rapid flow of debris with sufficient water to disperse grains uniformly throughout the entire depth. Dam break flows, landslides and flows in a mountainous terrain are some of the examples.

The study evaluates the applicability of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in rainfall-runoff process modeling for the Ajay river basin, Jharkhand to predict the 6-hour ahead runoff at Sarath. Initially three flood events were considered for training, to find out the weights between different layers of the network. The back propagation algorithm has been used for optimization of weights. The developed ANN was validated for rest of the flood events.

The report deals with expert systems for unit hydrograph analysis, an emerging technology, which may in years to come, revolutionize professional activities in the field of surface water analysis and modeling. The literature review on the topic revealed the potential of application of expert system for unit hydrograph analysis. A prototype expert system has been developed for the selection of the most appropriate model for unit hydrograph derivation of a given catchment.

Earth Policy Institute, is a non-profit environmental research organization dedicated to providing a vision of an eco-economy and a roadmap on how to get there. The Institute was founded in 2001 with the following goals: 

• to provide a global plan (Plan B) for moving the world onto an environmentally and economically sustainable path
• to provide examples demonstrating how the plan would work, and
• to keep the media, policymakers, academics, environmentalists, and other decision-makers focused on the process of building a Plan B economy.

The basic research of the Institute has been published in the form of seven books:

The study attempts to develop a relationship between glacier melt runoff and meteorological parameters for the Dokriani glacier in Garhwal Himalayas. The discharge auto-correlation, correlation between discharge & temperature and between discharge & rainfall has been computed for each month of the summer season and for the melt season as a whole for different years.

The report presents a sedimentation study in which sedimentation rate and volume have been determined using remote sensing data in the Ukai reservoir constructed across the Tapti River in Gujarat.

The report deals with software developed by the National Institute of Hydrology with the purpose of preparation of hydrological data book in a form most valuable to the users. A menu driven, user friendly software has been developed to handle all types of hydrological and meteorological data.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests released a draft of the regulatory framework for wetland conservation - Wetlands Conservation and Management Rules (2009) for feedback from all stakeholders. The draft framework was prepared by a multi-disciplinary expert group, and final round of comments were invited till June 21st 2010.

The Wetland Conservation Team of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) did a detailed analysis of the draft regulation and submitted several pertinent concerns to the Ministry. The most significant observation is that the new framework (as do much of India's policies and laws) continues to propose unjustifiable State control and interventions over the country's wetlands and livelihoods of people dependent on them. The regulation does not make any constructive suggestions or recommendations for the conservation that the country's wetlands demand, and instead brings all wetlands into complete official control by installing Central, State and District-level wetland regulatory authorities, wherein the majority of the members will be senior government officials.