Monsoon 2021: IMD to forecast water-level rise in all dams, river basins for efficient reservoir administration

STARTING THIS monsoon, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) plans to supply estimates of the doable enhance and availability of water ranges in river basins and reservoirs in order to allow higher water administration.
In India, dam administration, together with water discharge primarily based on real-time rainfall and different contributory elements, nonetheless stays a problem. For occasion, the 2018 Kerala floods have been an instance the place the state of affairs was reportedly aggravated resulting from unscientific dam administration.
Central Water Commission displays water ranges of 130 reservoirs within the nation. “In order to enhance hydrological services, we plan to issue forecasts and predictions about possible rise in water level or water availability in river basins and reservoirs towards the end of every month during the monsoon between June and September. This can also be done bi-monthly or on a weekly basis,” stated Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director normal, IMD, on Monday.
He was talking on ‘Societal application of sub-seasonal to seasonal predictions: Current status and its future in India’ organised as a part of a world convention nearly hosted by Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
The three-day convention, ‘Future directions of sub-seasonal to seasonal predictions’, concludes on March 31.
“There is demand and users seek information on the volume of water available in reservoirs and rivers, especially during monsoon, which aids effective management,” Mohapatra stated, including that international locations like US and Australia already had such providers and forecasts being issued underneath probabilistic stream circulation forecasts.
Mohapatra additionally stated sub-seasonal to seasonal climate predictions is also useful in coping with floods or drought-like conditions throughout the monsoon.
While the Met division began these providers on a pilot foundation for a choose 10 reservoir basins, particularly Hirakud, Almatti, Krishna Raja Sagara, Idukki, amongst others, final 12 months, the scheme can be expanded to all rivers and reservoirs throughout the upcoming monsoon.
“The forecast accuracy is higher for large river or reservoir basins in comparison to smaller basins,” Mohapatra stated.

On the developments made in India’s climate modelling programs in recent times, M Rajeevan, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), stated a rise in knowledge assimilation together with improved computational powers had contributed considerably within the issuing higher climate forecasts, particularly over brief and medium ranges.
Rajeevan additionally gave an replace on India’s efforts to strengthen its meteorological providers, observational networks and computational capacities.
“Since soil moisture is a vital parameter required in extended range predictions, the IMD is currently in the process of installing a national network of soil moisture observation stations. Initially, 200 stations will be deployed within the next few months and this will scaled up to 500,” Rajeevan stated.

To improve the understanding of ocean mixing processes in Bay of Bengal, the MoES has deployed a first-of-its-kind ocean flux mooring alongside the North Bay of Bengal. “This information will be critical in operating out-ocean models,” Rajeevan stated.
On the computational entrance, the ministry is planning to boost supercomputing capability of 10 petaflop to 30 within the close to future, the MoES Secretary added.