• Relative impact of recent climate and land cover changes in the Godavari river basin, India

• # Fulltext

https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jess/128/04/0094

• # Keywords

LC change; climate change; Godavari river basin; macroscale hydrological model.

• # Abstract

The Godavari river basin (GRB), the second largest river basin (312,800 km$^{2}$) in India, was considered in this study to quantify the relative hydrological impact of recent land cover (LC) changes and rainfall trends using the variable infiltration capacity hydrologic model. Three scenarios, namely, (i) LC change, (ii) climate change and (iii) LC and climate changes, were considered to isolate the hydrological implications of the LC changes from those of climate change. Results revealed that evapotranspiration is predominantly governed by LC change and that small changes in rainfall cause greater changes in the runoff. Although the spatial extent of LC change is higher, the climate change is the dominant driver of hydrological changes within the GRB. Thus, climate projections are the key inputs to study the impact on the river basin hydrology. The results provide insights into the impacts of the climate and LC changes on the basin. The methodology and results of the present study can be further considered for water resource planning within the river basin in view of the changing environment.

• # Author Affiliations

1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400 076, India.

• # Journal of Earth System Science

Volume 131, 2022
All articles
Continuous Article Publishing mode

• # Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019