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Impact Assessment of Environmental Flows Using CORDEX Regional Climate Models: Case Study of Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, Krishna River, India

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Advanced Modelling and Innovations in Water Resources Engineering

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ((LNCE,volume 176))

Abstract

The quantity and quality of water flow in a river may significantly change from its normal condition between a reservoir and downstream, thus paving the way for drastic changes in the riverine ecosystem. Any disruption in the river's natural flow regime can alter the entire river ecosystem and socio-economic activities. Environmental flows are mainly defined based on hydrologic, hydraulic, and ecological conditions of a river system. Given the changes in precipitation and temperature patterns under climate change, the river flows are expected to alter, thereby impacting the hydrological and environmental flow conditions. The present study will articulate various hydrological methods currently available in the state-of-the-art, to determine the environmental flows. The study demonstrates how the climatological driven changes in river flows alter the hydrological, environmental flows, using the dynamically downscaled Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) model outputs. A data-driven hydrological model has been used to study the river flow alterations for the projected precipitation patterns. The projected river flows have been used to study the changes in hydrological, environmental flows for future scenarios. The study has considered the Krishna river, emphasizing the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir, and assessing downstream hydrological, environmental flows with the changes of precipitation under climate change. The decrease of rainfall over the reservoir's catchment has led to a significant decrease in reservoir inflows for the period of 1980 to 2011 and a consequent decrease of environmental flows in terms of 75, 80, 85, 90, 95% exceedance flows for Nagarjuna Sagar dam. The increasing projections of rainfall over the reservoir's catchment based on CORDEX outputs have resulted in lower magnitudes of decrease in low flow quantities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hydroclimatic Research Group, Lab for Spatial Informatics, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, 500032, India

    Rajesh Maddu, Krishna Mohan Ganta & Rehana Shaik

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, Delhi, 110016, India

    C. T. Dhanya

Authors
  1. Rajesh Maddu
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  2. Krishna Mohan Ganta
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  3. Rehana Shaik
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  4. C. T. Dhanya
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rehana Shaik .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India

    Chintalacheruvu Madhusudana Rao

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, Rourkela, Odisha, India

    K. C. Patra

  3. Department of Soil and Water Conservation Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering and Post Harvest Technology, Central Agricultural University, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

    D. Jhajharia

  4. Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India

    Sangeeta Kumari

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Maddu, R., Ganta, K.M., Shaik, R., Dhanya, C.T. (2022). Impact Assessment of Environmental Flows Using CORDEX Regional Climate Models: Case Study of Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, Krishna River, India. In: Rao, C.M., Patra, K.C., Jhajharia, D., Kumari, S. (eds) Advanced Modelling and Innovations in Water Resources Engineering. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 176. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4629-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4629-4_14

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-4629-4

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