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Assessment of snow-glacier melt and rainfall contribution to stream runoff in Baspa Basin, Indian Himalaya

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Abstract

Hydrological regimes of most of the Himalayan river catchments are poorly studied due to sparse hydro-meteorological data. Hence, stream runoff assessment becomes difficult for various socio-industrial activities in the Himalaya. Therefore, an attempt is made in this study to assess the stream runoff of Baspa River in Himachal Pradesh, India, by evaluating the contribution from snow-ice melt and rainfall runoff. The total volume of flow was computed for a period of 15 years, from 2000 to 2014, and validated with the long-term field discharge measurements, obtained from Jaipee Hydropower station (31° 32′ 35.53″ N, 78° 00′ 54.80″ E), at Kuppa barrage in the basin. The observations suggest (1) a good correlation (r2 > 0.80) between the modeled runoff and field discharge measurements, and (2) out of the total runoff, 81.2% are produced by snowmelt, 11.4% by rainfall, and 7.4% from ice melt. The catchment receives ~75% of its total runoff in the ablation period (i.e., from May to September). In addition, an early snowmelt is observed in accumulation season during study period, indicating the significant influence of natural and anthropogenic factors on high-altitude areas.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Ravichandran, Director; Dr. Thamban Meloth (project lead); Dr. Parmanand Sharma, Dr. Laluraj and other team members of Cryosphere Project, NCAOR, for their continuous support. A special thanks to Dr. Helgi Bjornsson, University of Iceland, and Dr. Sriram Gullapalli, National Institute of Oceanography, for their technical suggestions and help in the programming. Also thanks to MOES for the financial support, USGS (Earth Explorer), and BBMB for providing the MODIS snow cover products, Landsat 8 OLI images, and meteorological data of Rakcham Observatory. Sincere and heartfelt thanks to Jaypee hydropower group and Dr. S. S.Randhawa, State centre for Climate change, Himachal Pradesh for their enormous support byproviding the monthly mean field discharge data for research purpose. This is NCAOR contributionnumber 30/2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Himalayan Cryosphere Science Division, ESSO-National Center for Antarctica and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Science, Vascodagama, Goa, India

    Vinay Kumar Gaddam

  2. Divecha Center for Climate Change, Center for Atmospheric and Ocean Science, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

    Anil V. Kulkarni

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Research Resource Center-Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi, Karnataka, India

    Anil Kumar Gupta

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  1. Vinay Kumar Gaddam
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Correspondence to Vinay Kumar Gaddam.

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Gaddam, V., Kulkarni, A.V. & Gupta, A.K. Assessment of snow-glacier melt and rainfall contribution to stream runoff in Baspa Basin, Indian Himalaya. Environ Monit Assess 190, 154 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-018-6520-y

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