TRAINING, EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND CAPACITY BUILDING NEEDS AND FUTURE REQUIREMENTS IN APPLICATIONS OF GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY FOR WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

In India, water resources are managed at different levels, i.e. at central level by Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board, at states level by state water resources departments, and at local level by Municipal Corporation and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). As per India’s national water policy of year 2012 focuses on adaption to climate change, enhancement of water availability, water demand management by efficient water use practices, management of floods and droughts, water supply and sanitation, trans-boundary rivers, conservation of water bodies and infrastructure, and finally research and training needs for each theme. Geospatial technology has unique role in all aforementioned themes. Therefore, research and training in use of Geospatial Technology (GST) in water sector is needed for each theme at different levels of water administration and water utilisation. The current paper discusses the existing framework and content of capacity building in water sector and geospatial technology in use at various government organizations and institutes. The major gap areas and future capacity building requirements are also highlighted, along with duration and timelines of training/capacity building programs. The use of distance learning/educations tools, social media, and e-learning are also highlighted in promoting use of GST in water sector. The emerging technological trends such as, new remote sensing sensors for measuring water cycle components, ground sensors based field instruments, cloud based data integration and computational models, webGIS based water information portals and training needs of new technologies are also emphasised

EXPERIMENTAL FLOOD EARLY WARNING SYSTEM IN PARTS OF BEAS BASIN USING INTEGRATION OF WEATHER FORECASTING, HYDROLOGICAL AND HYDRODYNAMIC MODELS

The flood early warning for any country is very important due to possible saving of human life, minimizing economic losses and devising mitigation strategies. The present work highlights the experimental flood early warning study in parts of Beas Basin, India for the monsoon season of 2015. The entire flood early warning was done in three parts. In first part, rainfall forecast for every three days in double nested Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) domain (9 km for outer domain and 3 km for inner domain) was done for North Western Himalaya NWH using National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecasting System (GFS) 0.25 degree data as initialization state. Rainfall forecast was validated using Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) data, the simulation accuracy of WRF in rainfall prediction above 100 mm is about 60%. Rainfall induced flood event of August 05–08, 2015 in Sone River (tributary of Beas River) Basin, near Dharampur, Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh caused very high damages. This event was picked three days in advance by WRF model based rainfall forecast. In second part, mean rainfall at sub-basin scale for hydrological model (HEC-HMS) was estimated from forecasted rainfall at every three hours in netcdf format using python script and flood hydrographs were generated. In third part, flood inundation map was generated using Hydrodynamic (HD) model (MIKE 11) with flood hydrographs as boundary condition to see the probable areas of inundation

IMPORTANCE OF INCORPORATION OF GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS IN WATER RESOURCES AT GRADUATE AND POST-GRADUATE COURSES OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

Water is a very crucial element to sustain life on earth. The availability of water varies both spatially and temporally. India being a water stress country, the per capita availability of water is reducing with time. It is predicted that by 2050 around 54% of the country will be water scarce. The changing climate along with the ever-increasing population is putting additional stress on water availability. The science of water, its availability and distribution on earth and its atmosphere, is generally regarded as hydrology. The important aspects of hydrology and hydraulic or more broadly water resources are taught as the subject or optional subjects the branch of Civil Engineering at almost all engineering institutes/colleges at the undergraduate level. It is also one of the specializations for post-graduate level studies. It is, by now, well proven that the geospatial technology play crucial role in water resources assessment, planning and management. However, the young minds (graduate and post-graduate students) are just being trained for typical hydrology using traditional means and approaches. The advancement and potential of geospatial technology has drawn the attention of academician, and it has been started as a subject mostly at the post-graduate courses. Recently, some of the institutions have started courses on geo-informatics at the graduate level. However, the hydrology and geospatial technology are generally taught as two separate subjects under different course at different levels mostly under the broad subject of Civil Engineering. The present paper emphasis on needs and ways of updating Civil Engineering course curriculum by focusing on incorporation of applications of geospatial technology in hydrology as regular subject

INTERCOMPARISON OF DIFFERENT RAINFALL PRODUCTS AND VALIDATION OF WRF MODELLED RAINFALL ESTIMATION IN N-W HIMALAYA DURING MONSOON PERIOD

Extreme precipitation events are responsible for major floods in any part of the world. In recent years, simulations and projection of weather conditions to future, with Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models like Weather Research and Forecast (WRF), has become an imperative component of research in the field of atmospheric science and hydrology. The validation of modelled forecast is thus have become matter of paramount importance in case of forecasting. This study delivers an all-inclusive assessment of 5 high spatial resolution gridded precipitation products including satellite data products and also climate reanalysis product as compared to WRF precipitation product. The study was performed in river basins of North Western Himalaya (NWH) in India. Performance of WRF model is evaluated by comparing with observational gridded (0.25° × 0.25°) precipitation data from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). Other products include TRMM Multi Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42-v7 product (0.25° × 0.25°) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) product (0.1° × 0.1°). Moreover, climate reanalysis rainfall product from ERA Interim is also used. Bias, Mean Absolute Error, Root Mean Square Error, False Alarm Ratio (FAR), Probability of False Detection (POFD), and Probability of Detection (POD) were calculated with particular rainfall thresholds. TRMM and GPM products were found to be sufficiently close to the observations. All products showed better performance in the low altitude areas i.e. in planes of Upper Ganga and Yamuna basin and Indus basin, and increase in error as topographical variation increases. This study can be used for identifying suitability of WRF forecast data and assessing performance of other rainfall datasets as well

SNOW COVER AND GLACIER DYNAMICS STUDY USING C-AND L-BAND SAR DATASETS IN PARTS OF NORTH WEST HIMALAYA

The seasonal snow cover and permanent ice in form of Himalayan glaciers provide fresh water to many perineal rivers of Himalayas. The melt water from seasonal snow and glaciers, especially during of 15 March to 15 June acts as important source of water for drinking, hydropower and irrigation requirements of many areas in North India. This work has highlights the use of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from RISAT-1, Sentinel-1A and 1B satellites and ALOS-PALSAR-2 PolInSAR data for snow cover and glacier dynamics study for parts of North West Himalaya. Glacier velocity was derived using InSAR based method using 6 day temporal interval images from Sentinel-1 satellites and 14 day interval for PALSAR-2 satellite. High coherence was obtained for main glacier in both the data sets, which resulted accurate line of site (LOS) glacier velocity estimates for test glaciers. These InSAR data glacier velocity results are obtained after a gap of 21 years. Glacier facies was estimated using multi-temporal SAR image composition based classification. All these maps were verified by extensive ground surveys done at these sites during 2014–2017. The time series data of C-band SAR in VV/VH polarisation was also used to map snow cover in test basins of Bhagirathi and Beas River. The VV/VH data clearly shows difference between dry and wet snow, thus helping in improved snow cover mapping using SAR data. This study will help in refining algorithms to be used for such studies using upcoming NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) mission

The clinical features of the piriformis syndrome: a systematic review

Piriformis syndrome, sciatica caused by compression of the sciatic nerve by the piriformis muscle, has been described for over 70 years; yet, it remains controversial. The literature consists mainly of case series and narrative reviews. The objectives of the study were: first, to make the best use of existing evidence to estimate the frequencies of clinical features in patients reported to have PS; second, to identify future research questions. A systematic review was conducted of any study type that reported extractable data relevant to diagnosis. The search included all studies up to 1 March 2008 in four databases: AMED, CINAHL, Embase and Medline. Screening, data extraction and analysis were all performed independently by two reviewers. A total of 55 studies were included: 51 individual and 3 aggregated data studies, and 1 combined study. The most common features found were: buttock pain, external tenderness over the greater sciatic notch, aggravation of the pain through sitting and augmentation of the pain with manoeuvres that increase piriformis muscle tension. Future research could start with comparing the frequencies of these features in sciatica patients with and without disc herniation or spinal stenosis

INDIAN INLAND WATER AND PARTS OF ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET ELEVATION AND ICE SHEET VELOCITY MONITORING USING ALTIMETRY AND SAR BASED DATASETS

The monitoring of inland water and continental ice sheets is very important from water management and global climate related studies. The current study utilizes the SGDR data from Saral-Altika during 2013–2017 to estimate and monitor water level in 24 major reservoirs of India. The R2 value for majority of reservoirs was more than 0.99 and RMSE error value also was less than 0.40 m. In addition, wide rivers of India such as Mahanadi River, was also monitored using Altika data covering part of Mahanadi River from Khairmal to Naraj gauging sites during 2013–2016 time period. One dimensional hydro-dynamic (1D-HD) model was setup for this part of river to generate river Discharge at virtual gauge. The part of Antarctic ice sheet South of Indian research station Maitri, East Antarctica, was studied for ice sheet elevation changes using ground based stake network as well as space based altimeter/LIDAR datasets during 2003–2017 time period. 2003–2009 time was used for getting elevation changes using Icesat-1 level 2 altimetry product, and Geophysical Data Record (GDR) data from Altika was used with slope correction from 2013–2016 time period. An extensive network of ground based stake networks were used for validating the derived elevation changes. The ice sheet and glacier line of site velocity was estimated using Sentinel-1 based InSAR data with 6 to 12 day time interval data sets for year 2016 and 2017. The derived glacier velocity was comparable with optical image (Landsat-8) based glacier velocity for same year and also with historical Radarsat-1 based glacier velocity results