Development of Inflow Forecasting Model for Reservoir using RTDAS

Abstract

The first requirement for management of water resources is to estimate the available water in respect of time and space. The occurrence of flood in a catchment is generally an effect of a severe combination of hydro-meteorological factors resulting in to a heavy precipitation. The mathematical models usually consider the rainfall data as an input and generate the flood hydrographs along with the time of its occurrence. Inflow forecasting is one of the applications of rainfall-runoff modeling in predicting stream flows at the outlet of the catchment or inflow into a reservoir from rainfall input. Availability of reliable and accurate data at desired time interval as an input to the forecast model is the major constraint in prediction of discharge value at the peak or the water level in the downstream reservoir. Present study comprises of development of a distributed model for inflow forecasting for the Lower Goi Project site situated in the Goi river, a lower sub-basin of Narmada River. The catchment area upto the dam site is 1119.66 sq km. The Real Time Data Acquisition System (RTDAS) network developed by the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) is in operation at Pati village in the downstream catchment. The observed discharge in the Goi river is compared with the model discharge at the Pati site for validation purposes. The model can be applied for computation of inflows into the Lower Goi reservoir, after completion of dam.