Abstract:
Any plan related to inter-basin transfer of water from a water-surplus
basin to a water-deficit basin has to take into account the water availability and
demands under the present and future scenarios of water use. Any waterrelated
activity that takes place in one part of a river basin may have
consequences in the other part. Therefore, effective management of water and
related environment in a river basin requires an integrated and co-ordinated
planning within the basin.
A conceptual spatially distributed water balance model, earlier developed
at NIH, has been applied to the Upper Bhima basin up to Ujjani dam. Various
types of spatial, attribute, and dynamic data are integrated by the model to
perform the water balance analysis to simulate various components of the
hydrologic cycle at the scale of a river basin. Model computes various
components of hydrologic cycle such as rainfall, actual evapo-transpiration,
runoff, groundwater recharge, soil moisture change etc. for various land uses in
different sub-basins of a river basin. The model brings out total water
availability in the basin; water consumed by different uses; and water storage
in different hydraulic structures, in soil water zone, and in groundwater aquifer
in a river basin. Using this model, various scenarios of water availability in a
river basin can be generated and analyzed. By taking repeated runs of the
model for longer time periods, sustainability of various water resources
management plans can be examined.
The model has been applied to the Upper Bhima basin up to Ujjani dam.
Extensive database has been generated for the basin and model runs have been
taken from June 1992 to May 2001. Basin data has been used to check the
model linkages. Various outputs of the model for the Upper Bhima basin have
been discussed in detail. The model results have been checked by matching the
river flows at different gauging sites and they have been found to be
satisfactory. However, the application has suggested a number of modification
requirement in the model some of which include: i) specification of EAC tables
for various storage structures, ii) rule-curve based operation of reservoirs so
that different management operations can be simulated, iii) option of
hydropower simulation of reservoirs, iv) option of spill release to different river
segment/sub-basin, v) simpler groundwater representation for river basin
planning, vi) option of lift irrigation etc.