1-Impact Assessment of Climate Change on Water Resources of Two River Systems of India.

Abstract

An exhaustive study was conducted as part of the National Communication (NATCOM) project undertaken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, to quantify the impact of climate change on the water resources of India using a hydrological model. The study uses the HadRM2 daily weather data to determine the control or present and GHG (Greenhouse Gas) or future water availability in space and time. A distributed hydrological model namely Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been used on major river basins of the country. The framework predicts the impact of climate change on the hydrological regime with the assumption that the land use shall not change over time and any manmade changes are not incorporated. Simulation of 12 major river major basins of the country has been conducted with 20 years of data belonging to control (present) and the remaining 20 years of data corresponding to GHG (future) climate scenario. Quantification of climate change impact has been done through the use of SWAT hydrological model. This paper presents analyses of two sample river basins namely, Godavari and Tapi. It has been observed that the impacts of climate change are not uniform and are varying across the river basins. The initial analysis has revealed that the GHG scenario may deteriorate the conditions in terms of severity of droughts and intensity of floods in various systems.