The status of research and studies in respect of related areas (other than
hydrology and water availability) also indicates that the result outcome or the
findings of the studies are rarely applied while planning water resources development projects and a lot more focus is called for. To illustrate, some specific areas are
discussed hereunder.
8 Real-Time Management of Water Resources
One of the greatest challenges in water resources management is the real-time
operations. As demonstrated above repeatedly, the operations of any water
resources project be it a farm pond or a large reservoir catering to thousands of
hectares of irrigated area or hundreds of MW of hydro power, the exercise remains
that of matching a random supply with delivery of an average quantum of water in
given period of time.
The prediction of yields and floods is a critical exercise in any water management scenario. Entire economies of the regions depend upon availability of specific
amounts of water at specified periods of time. Water availability scenario depends
upon many hydro-meteorological factors and also on the upstream utilization patterns for projects lying in the middle and lower basin areas. With the climate
change, it has been predicted that for a monsoon fed country like India, the intensity
and areal extent of rainfall events may face greater skew than what has been
observed historically. This will lead to the situations described in the foregoing
paragraph where the strategies have to be based on managing the extremes.
Yield forecasting plays an important role in planning operations in such a
manner that the economic outputs from the project are optimized and have lesser
risks. Crop planning generally has to take place by June so as to utilize the planting
season. An estimate of the water that will potentially be available for the monsoon
season becomes the greatest determining factor towards potential success of the
venture on the part of the farmer. In many of the snow fed catchments in Himalayas,
the remote sensing techniques provide reliable estimates of snow melt yields that
may become available at the commencement of planting season. BBMB successfully uses such remote sensing-based yield forecasting models for their operations.
Such predictions in most of our purely rain-fed basins is quite difficult. India
Meteorological Department (IMD) provides various products of predictive rainfalls
in meteorological divisions of the country which are of some help though much
more needs to be done as far as supportive irrigation needs are concerned. The
flows during the monsoon season are not only affected by the rainfall but are
strongly affected by the basin utilization patterns which affect the yields for the
downstream areas.
Increasing events of intense rainfalls followed by relative dry spells make the
capture of yield and utilization quite difficult. Interconnection of reservoirs with
short-term forecasts of yield into the parent reservoir and assessment of yields in the
156
A. B. Pandya
hydrology and water availability) also indicates that the result outcome or the
findings of the studies are rarely applied while planning water resources development projects and a lot more focus is called for. To illustrate, some specific areas are
discussed hereunder.
8 Real-Time Management of Water Resources
One of the greatest challenges in water resources management is the real-time
operations. As demonstrated above repeatedly, the operations of any water
resources project be it a farm pond or a large reservoir catering to thousands of
hectares of irrigated area or hundreds of MW of hydro power, the exercise remains
that of matching a random supply with delivery of an average quantum of water in
given period of time.
The prediction of yields and floods is a critical exercise in any water management scenario. Entire economies of the regions depend upon availability of specific
amounts of water at specified periods of time. Water availability scenario depends
upon many hydro-meteorological factors and also on the upstream utilization patterns for projects lying in the middle and lower basin areas. With the climate
change, it has been predicted that for a monsoon fed country like India, the intensity
and areal extent of rainfall events may face greater skew than what has been
observed historically. This will lead to the situations described in the foregoing
paragraph where the strategies have to be based on managing the extremes.
Yield forecasting plays an important role in planning operations in such a
manner that the economic outputs from the project are optimized and have lesser
risks. Crop planning generally has to take place by June so as to utilize the planting
season. An estimate of the water that will potentially be available for the monsoon
season becomes the greatest determining factor towards potential success of the
venture on the part of the farmer. In many of the snow fed catchments in Himalayas,
the remote sensing techniques provide reliable estimates of snow melt yields that
may become available at the commencement of planting season. BBMB successfully uses such remote sensing-based yield forecasting models for their operations.
Such predictions in most of our purely rain-fed basins is quite difficult. India
Meteorological Department (IMD) provides various products of predictive rainfalls
in meteorological divisions of the country which are of some help though much
more needs to be done as far as supportive irrigation needs are concerned. The
flows during the monsoon season are not only affected by the rainfall but are
strongly affected by the basin utilization patterns which affect the yields for the
downstream areas.
Increasing events of intense rainfalls followed by relative dry spells make the
capture of yield and utilization quite difficult. Interconnection of reservoirs with
short-term forecasts of yield into the parent reservoir and assessment of yields in the
156
A. B. Pandya