Hydrology of Small Watersheds

Planning and development of small watersheds calls for rigorous understanding about the occurrence and movement of water in the surface and sub-surface systems along with soil and nutrient losses in a small watershed. Realizing the importance of the problem and gaps in understanding small watershed hydrology in Indian catchments due to paucity of data, the coordinated program on “Hydrology of small watershed” has been launched by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. 

The main objectives of the program are:
1. To generate data on hydro-meteorological, soil, nutrients and process related       parameters at small watershed level in different agro-ecological zones of the country through instrumentation.
2. To carry out modeling studies on watershed hydrology.
3. To develop SDSS for land and water management at small watershed scale.
4. To assess the impact of on-site and off-site management structures for soil and water conservation.

Under the program a pair of treated and untreated small watersheds ( about 10 sq. km. ) have been selected in the following regions
(1)Dudhi and Bewas watersheds of Tawa basin in Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh 
(2)Pundlu and Madpuriya watersheds of Siyara catchment in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan .
(3)Chandrabhaga Garh and Danda watersheds in Garhwal district of Uttar Pradesh (Now Uttaranchal).
(4)Paykkara watershed in Attapady region of Palghat district of Kerala and Rampatna watershed in Kolar district of Karnataka.
(5)Waikhulok and Awang Khujailok I watersheds in the Loktak lake basin of Manipur.

Criteria for selecting these watersheds are as follows:
(a) Small watersheds as defined by the Department of Agriculture, Govt. of India   varying in size from 500-5000 ha.
(b) It should be accessible and must have sites for water resources development.
(c) The watershed should have some agricultural activities in it.
(d) Those contiguous to another watershed, which has already been developed under some governmental programme.
(e) The watershed should represent the pre-dominant land use system of the agro-ecological region.

Project proposals are invited for other Agro-ecological regions under the programme. DST assistance in the projects comes mainly in the form of supplying hydro-meteorological instruments, hardware, software and manpower.

Outputs expected out of these programme are:
1. Database for land and water management at small watershed level for different Agro-climatic regions.
2. Standardised methodology for
(i) Hydrologic monitoring of small watersheds
(ii) Procedure for data analysis
(iii) Methodology for land and water management plan preparation
3. Bio-physical indicators for small watershed monitoring
4. Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) for watershed management.

Tools for regionalisation to other small watersheds of the same agro-ecological region.