ANALYSIS OF RIVER FLOWS AND ' HYDROPOWER POTENTIAL IN SAPT GANDKI BASIN (NEPAL

Abstract

For hydropower projects, characteristics and quantity of stream flows are required to derive critical flow sequences of their associated probabilities. Through this case study, a variety of hydrologic practices and computer analysis are presented. This study covers the analysis of 17 years daily flow data at a proposed hydropower project site (Dev Ghat) in the Sapta Gandaki basin in Nepal. Stage-discharge and dis-charge sed iment studies have been conducted to estimate missing records and to estimate reservoir life. Variation of runoff. from year to year, within a year (wet year, average year, dry year) and maximum/minimum flows of various probabilities are worked out, probable minimum flows are estimated by Pearson Type III distribution and by Shevelcv's equation. Probable floods are estimated by Gumbel distribution on original and power transformed series, log normal distribution. D- Index test is applied to test the fitness of distribution. Criteria. for design flood is discussed and a design flood for the project is derived. `Thomas Fiering Model was used to generate 45 years sequence of mean monthly flows.