HYDROLOGICAL MODELLING OVER GANGA RIVER BASIN USING VIC MODEL

Abstract

Effective watershed management is crucial for growth, sustainable development, protection of the environment, and prosperity of nation. Due to lack of watershed-wide hydrological data from in situ platforms, whether they are real time or historical, water management has been quite challenging. Under such circumstances, hydrologic models forced with widely available satellite-based datasets can be useful. Keeping this in mind, and availability of hydro-meteorological dataset, the present study was carried out to evaluate applicability of physically based VIC hydrologic model over Upper Ganga Basin up to Garhmukteshwar. Calibration, uncertainty analysis and validation of the VIC model on daily basis, was carried out for the years 2009 to 2010. A good agreement between the simulated and observed hydrographs for discharge indicates very good performance of the VIC model. After successful validation of the model output maps of runoff, ET and soil moisture were developed. Furthermore, Soil Water Index (SWI) was estimated using Scatterometer data and VIC derived soil moisture has been utilized for the development of an equation for soil moisture estimation using SWI. The correlation coefficient between VIC derived soil moisture and SWI was found to be good which indicated the potential of estimation of soil moisture using remote sensing datasets