Integrated watershed development plan for a sub-basin, central India

Abstract

The present study aims to propose an integrated watershed development plan for the Wainganga basin situated in Maharashtra, India. Also, the study involves evaluating the performance and applicability of SWAT (Soil and water assessment tool) as a runoff model along with the trend analysis of rainfall for the above mentioned study area. The decadal land-use/land-cover (LULC) variation from 1985 to 2005 has been studied using data procured from Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES-DISC) and groundwater table level of the study area was monitored using dug/bore well data collected from Central Ground Water Board (CGWB). Rainfall trend analysis for a period of 101 years using historic rainfall data procured from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been analyzed to foresee the future scenario. It was observed that the rainfall-runoff relationship of the area is getting affected by the LULC variation and thereby affecting the groundwater regime. There is a significant deterioration in the forest cover and water bodies which is alarming. The study devises the importance of an immediate master plan to be implemented in the basin to avoid any future crisis. Also, the study emphasizes the advancement of remote sensing in the use of hydrologic models like SWAT more realistically.

Flood Frequency Estimation in Data-Sparse Wainganga Basin, India, Using Continuous Simulation

“…The overall KGE' values observed for these catchments depend most strongly on the Pearson product-moment correlation between observed and modeled flows as there is almost no volumetric bias for any catchment, and the reported values for the coefficient of variation component of the KGE' show that the PDM only slightly underestimates flow variability in most cases. NSE values are generally much lower than KGE' values, although NSE at Ashti is favorable in comparison to a recent study using the SWAT model [47]. Low or negative NSE values may indicate that observed flows are relatively stable, not that modeled flows are particularly poor [48].…”