ABSTRACT
The management of water resources is an utmost important issue in developing countries like India because of considerable spatial and temporal variability of precipitation, fast-growing population, infrastructural problems, lower efficiencies of projects, distribution issues, declining groundwater, change in climatic pattern, etc. In recent times, the frequencies and intensity of extreme events and resulting natural disasters are becoming more frequent in many nations and affecting economic and environmental situation significantly. The Mahanadi is one of the major rivers of Chhattisgarh having important tributaries like Sondur, Pairy, Tandula, Sheonath, Jonk, Mand, Kelo, Ib, Kodar, Hasdeo, Arpa, Kharun, Kharang, Borai, etc. The Mahanadi is one of the major river basins in eastern India with a catchment area of 1,41, 600 sq km. well known for paddy cultivation and climate extreme can impact paddy production and thus wellbeing of farmers in the region. In the present study, an attempt has been made to compute seven extreme indices of temperature and nine extreme indices of rainfall including prescribed by the World Meteorological Organization and Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) based on suitability under Indian condition were computed for gridded data of Mahanadi river basin covering by 206 grids from 1981 to 2015 C1imPACT2 software has been used for computation of these indices and results were analyzed in ARC GIS for spatial distribution. The analysis suggested that seasonal rainfall may vary in the range of 800 to 1200 mm from west to east and maximum temperature varies from 38.5 to 50°C where the higher maximum temperature in the central part of the basin. The number of consecutive rainy days (CWD) is higher in the Orrisa coast (28 days) and decreases towards the Chhattisgarh side (22 days) where water resource projects may have an adverse impact. The distribution of different extremes obtained from spatial interpolation may be useful to get important insight regarding spatial variation and may be useful for planning water resources in the region.
