Climate Change In India As Viewed from Rainfall Variability and Related Hydrogeology

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Global Warming and Climate Change have been quite common but equally important issues and the effects are getting visible. The most effected domain of the climate change would be the hydrological cycle. We certainly can’t stop or revert such changes but try to observe, monitor the variability and changes, assess them and find ways to adopt so that sustainability is guaranteed and the impact is affordable. Hydrological cycle involves climate change about water and its transformation from one state to another.

The hydrological cycle comprises of a large number of parameters but the most important one is the rainfall and its associated components. The time series of the rainfall for about 23 years period (from 1985 to 2007) from a semi-arid region in Andhra Pradesh, has been analysed for its variability at various scales and at various forms. The area is a shadow zone of the state and receives an annual rainfall of about 700 mm. The average of the annual rainfall provides a misleading scenario as the changes are minimum. However, the monthly rainfall plotted for different years provides high variability and maximum variance also; the peak arises a little late in the month of October. The variances calculated fixing a month in the rainy season also reveal that maximum variance occurs in the month of July itself.

The findings have shown two major characteristics viz., there appears to be a shift in the occurrence of the monsoon rains and the events got more frequent peaks followed by long gaps. Also it appears that the region now started receiving more rainfall from the bay of Bengal side and ultimately got reduction in the SW monsoon rains. This provides the area with extreme conditions of the rainfall as they are cyclonic in nature with an extremely high variability. This erratic nature jointly with the extreme events reduces the groundwater recharge from the rainfall at one hand and increases the run-off and ultimately floods on the other hand. An optimal monitoring for precise assessment and shift in the agricultural schedule may minimize the losses of the impact.

Stream: Scientific Evidence

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

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Ms. Sarah basically a geologist completed her M.Sc. (Applied Geology) from
the Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, Kashmir University, Srinagar is
presently a research scholar at the Indo-French Centre for Groundwater
Research, NGRI, Hyderabad. She is carrying out her doctoral research on
groundwater renewability indicators. She has presented papers in several
conferences and has prepared a couple of manuscript on her research work.
Her research also include climate change and cimate variability as well
as their impact on the hydrological cycle. She is a member of IAHS.

Dr. Shakeel Ahmed, Scientist, National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad and Vice President, Muslim Association for Advancement of Science (MAAS), Aligarh has been awarded the International Prize for Water Science - 2004 at Cannes Water Symposium, Cannes, France. The prize is one of the 9 prizes called “Lights of Water” awarded every year. The prize consists of a trophy and a citation. The award was conferred to Dr. Ahmed for his continued efforts in promoting international collaboration in the field of water sciences. At present he is heading an Indo-French Centre for Groundwater Research (IFCGR) from Indian side. He has recently completed an Indo-French collaborative research project as Indian Principal Collaborator and lead a pilot project from UNESCO. He has supervised a number of doctoral research including the French students also. Dr. Ahmed is also YMSA 1996 and National Mineral Awardee 2006.