DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL HYDRO ATLAS FOR RAMGANGA WATERSHED

Abstract

Water is a precious natural resource vital for sustaining all life on the Earth. It is not uniformly distributed in time and space. Due to its multiple benefits and the problems created by its excesses, shortages and quality deterioration, water as a resource requires special attention. Therefore, a comprehensive and scientific study on the quantitative and qualitative variations of water resources and their reasonable exploitation and utilization to bring their potential into full play for meeting the needs of sustainable development, is one of the most important challenges to resource managers and planners. Planning and development of water resources require authenticated data and information on hydrology and water resources at appropriate temporal and spatial scale, which presently are not available in digital environment for any part of the Uttarakhand State. This thesis work aims to design and develope a Digital Hydro Atlas for Ramganga watershed located in Uttarakhand State. Thesis work also includes design and develope tools to explore various digital hydro maps. In such a design map order is not a concern - images can be linked in multiple directions, Stores large amounts of both graphic and valuable data which can be manipulated and analyzed, it is quick, efficient production and easily updated. This designed Atlas is just an effort to be made to meet the basic needs of the people. It also describing various water resources of Ramganga watershed including watershed boundary, micro-watersheds, drainage network, morphological parameters, rainfall, contours, runoff, water balance, ponds, reservoirs, springs ground water contours, water availaointy, water consumption, canal network, water quantity and quality, transportation network, rural and urban network etc. These digital hydro maps are designed from the analysis of multi-temporal remotely sensed images, digitization of existing maps and collected through Government/users agencies. Keywords: Digital Hydro Atlas, Water Resources, Remotely sensed images, Micro-watershed, administrative boundary. ii