IMPACT OF HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PARAMETERS ON WATERSHED TOPOGRAPHY: A CASE STUDY OF BEAS RIVER BASIN

Abstract

In recent years, Beas basin has experienced a series of extreme weather events in the form of flash-floods, and cloudbursts which leads to huge loss of lives and properties. These extreme events are dependent upon numerous hydrometeorological as well as topographical features of the basin. In this regard, there is a need to study the impact of these meteorological variables as well as topographical characteristics. The influence of other topographical factors like Land use land cover, geomorphology, slope, drainage density and soils should also be estimated. In this work, an attempt has been made to correlate numerous topographical parameters like elevation, with the hydrometeorological factor like wind, precipitation, humidity, pressure and temperature with the help of remote sensing and GIS. The result showed that in the study region, the temporal pattern of temperature and pressure pattern was found to be increasing while the precipitation, wind and humidity was found to be decreasing. The correlation between elevation and precipitation, wind, pressure and temperature were all found negative, which shows that the lower elevated area of this basin is more vulnerable to extreme events. However, in the case of precipitation, most of the precipitation is concentrated at the elevation in range of 2000m to 4000m. Such studies would enable the policy makers to incorporate necessary action for mitigating extreme weather phenomena in future.