Meteorological spatiotemporal drought impact assessment on water storage of Kolar reservoir, India

Abstract

Climate change remains one of the main problems of the century which cause abrupt change in metrological phenomena. Hydrological drought assessment is very critical for ungauged catchments and important for the water storage and management of the reservoir. The research analyses the temporal variation of the drought events in Kolar River basin located in Madhya Pradesh state, India. Also, critical watershed is also identified which suffers most of the drought events. To accomplish this, four drought indices namely Standardized Precipitation Index, Reconnaissance Drought Index, Rainfall Deciles and Modified China Z-Index is used for the analysis. Rainfall from three rain gauge stations namely Birpur, Brijesh Nagar and Ichhawar from the sites were collected from the site ranging from 1988 to 2018 for thirty years. The contemporary research can be treasured source of scientific basis of policy formation and decision of stakeholders involved. Also, the analysis indicates the changing trends in rainfall patterns of the basin which affects the storage and preventive measures to be incorporated in the basin for the future availability of water for agricultural purposes and ever-growing domestic use water demand. It shows based on analysis that middle region of Kolar river basin is more vulnerable to drought in recent years. Due to variation in temperature, climatic conditions and precipitation annually and seasonally suggests a rotation cropping patterns of diverse nutrients requirement. Inter-basin transfer is also one of the innovative technologies used to address the issue. Kolar river and Sip river, both joins Narmada in downstream but Sip lacks storage structure and its water can be diverted to Kolar reservoir. The rainfall-runoff estimation carried out on the sip river suggests a runoff generation of 35 million cubic meters of water to the dam. It will not only help in addressing water shortage but also helps in socio-economic problem.