Abstract:
Water is a precious resource and plays a vital role in the development of agriculture, industry and power generation. The extent to which this resource is tapped for its manifold uses can well be a clL to the advancement of an economy.
In India, because of rapid increase in population and large scale expansion in industry and agriculture, the need for all round development of water resources has been given very high priority since independence. As a result, large amounts of money are being invested every year in the construction of medium and large scale hydraulic strcutres such as dams, storage reservoirs, irrigation tanks, etc. for optimum utilisation of available water resources of the coin ry. For a better understanding of the water resources of a river basin and for designing costly hydraulic structure, it is necessary to have long period hydrological data like gauge and discharge observations at a number of places along a river. Barring a few rivers, the discharge observations over a long periods are not available for most of the rivers. It is only during the last 2 to 3 decades efforts are being made in an integrated manner to collect hydrological data. On the other hand, the recording of meteorological data like rainfall, temperature, wind, humidity and atmospheric pressure were initiated long back. Consequently, rainfall and other climatic records going back to 80-90 years are available for a good network of stations. Specially, rainfall data are available for a close. network of stations. Meteorologists, hydrologists and engineers have recognised that in the absence of actual hydrological data, the long term rainfall and other meteorological data can be used for the development of water resources of a region by the technique of hydrometeorology.
