Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences
Title : | Application of Systematic, Historical and Palaeoflood Records for the Evaluation of Floods on the Kaveri River: Southern India |
Area of research : | Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences |
Focus area : | Hydrology, Paleoclimate Studies |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Pramodkumar Shivajirao Hire , H.P.T. Arts And R.Y.K. Science College, Maharashtra |
Timeline Start Year : | 2023 |
Timeline End Year : | 2026 |
Contact info : | pramodkumarhire@gmail.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Floods form a part of a broad range of water-related phenomena that have immense impacts on human beings and their activities (Baker, 1994). Because most of the world’s habitations started along rivers, since ancient times floods have been recognized as a major aspect of the riverine environment. The regime characteristics of Indian sub-continental rivers are intimately tied with the monsoonal climate of the region and the most significant aspects of monsoonal rivers are floods. High magnitude floods, apart from being a vital part of the geomorphology, hydrology and ecology of fluvial systems, are also most destructive and widespread meteorological hazards in the monsoon regions. The Kaveri (also Cauvery) River is one of the largest rivers of the Peninsular India and frequently affected by large magnitude floods. Recent high magnitude floods of 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 in Tamil Nadu, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry have posed several questions to understand the relationship between the floods with climatic change or human impact. A statistical approach to the problem of floods using modern gauging station data may lead to substantial losses of life and property. This systematic record is generally inadequate to only 2-3 decades in India and the high magnitude floods are, therefore, are not denoted in the data set. Therefore, in the recent years, flood hydrologists and geomorphologisits have turned to studying historical, geological and geomorphological records to estimate magnitude and frequency of large floods that have occurred before the time of measurement. Historical records provide a catalogue of the high magnitude floods that happened during periods of human settlements and palaeoflood studies using geological indicators can document the large magnitude flood events over a certain period of time from decades to millennia and provide evidence of all other events below some threshold (Stedinger and Baker, 1987). Both sources are forms of non-systematic records and have the similar statistical analysis approach (Franc, 1998). Extended records of extreme floods can then be used effectively in risk analysis, in association with the more traditional empirical, statistical and deterministic approaches to estimate the largest floods. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Archana Dilip Patil, Gokhale Education Society's RNC Arts, Jdb Commerce & Nsc Science College,Nashik, Maharashtra-422101 |
Total Budget (INR): | 31,79,240 |
Organizations involved