Union Minister for Jal Shakti Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat today said that challenges of Climate challenge and unpredictability of Monsoon has emerged as one of the greatest problems facing India. Speaking at a Workshop on Flood Management here, the Minister said that there is a need for holistic approach to fight the challenges of both the drought and floods in India. He said, as the Central Water Commission (CWC) is going to celebrate 75^th year of its foundation soon, the distilled wisdom of the organization should be reviewed and taken forward to find practical solutions.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Rattan Lal Kataria said that in India states like Assam and North Bihar face floods every year, but with the arrival of new technology, CWC could be able to do flood forecasting 3 to 4 days in advance. He said, due to faulty planning, many of our cities face the problem of water-logging during Monsoon and appealed that local bodies should work in coordination with Central agencies to tide over this challenge.

The study for “Reassessment of Water Availability of River Basins in India using Space Inputs” for assessing the average annual water resources in the country is conducted by Central Water Commission (CWC) with technical support of National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad. The average annual water resource of the 20 basins of the country has been assessed as 1999.20 Billion Cubic Meter (BCM). Fully science based state-of-the-art modeling tools and satellite data have been used in this study. The methodology for reassessment was finalized by a committee consisting of experts from CWC, NRSC, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and Academia. The most distinguishing features of the study are incorporation of rainfall, land use, land cover, proper estimation of demand, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and development of basin and sub-basin wise models with the help of the software namely ‘Water Resources Assessment Tool (WRAT)’ developed by NRSC. The outcome of this study will be very useful for proper planning and development of country’s water resources.

Later, Shri Shekhawat released a book titled “Reassessment of Water Availability in India Using Space Inputs”.

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