Improving Water Resources Planning using Spatial Data

The National Hydrology Project (NHP) was taken up by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, RD & GR, Govt. of India to improve the extent and accessibility of water resources information and strengthen institutional capacity to enable improved water resources planning and management across India. The focus was on establishing a sound hydrological database and information system and scientific tools for effective planning and management of water resources within each implementing agency.

Stakeholders involved

Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, RD & GR, Government of India, and State Water Resources Departments.

Solution and Implementation Plan

The project implementation plan was prepared as per the ISO guidelines practised within the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), including information on project management structure, internal and external QC teams, detailed project schedule with milestones, manpower deployment schedule, funds and other infrastructure requirements, necessary software tools, a mechanism for obtaining and handling customer feedback, and so on.

All geospatial products generated under the project are disseminated through the customized Bhuvan-NHP web geoportal for their use & feedback by various stakeholders.

Objective

1. To design and develop an open-source web-based GIS portal for facilitating spatial planning at the Gram Panchayat level.

2. To assist in capacity building of all involved stakeholders so that they can apply the tools for rural development.

3. To collate multi-thematic content on natural resource management for ease of evaluation, verification, and execution of planning projects.

All activities taken up by NRSC use satellite data-based inputs and derived inputs like Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for generating water resources information and products. High-resolution and coarse-resolution satellite datasets are used as inputs for activities like an estimation of ET, snowmelt runoff, Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) risk assessment, irrigation, and hydrological drought.

Disclaimer: These case studies have been extracted from the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework report.