Research Projects

Reservoirs are the backbone for sustainable irrigation and food security. But these reservoirs are losing their capacity due to sedimentation problems. The catchment processes such as soil erosion are the major concern for the sediment yield in the reservoirs. The sediments not only add its load but also bring nutrients into the reservoirs. The consequence is storage loss and water quality deterioration. Hence a comprehensive understanding of the catchment processes and its impacts on the downstream reservoir water quality to be studied in detail. Therefore the need of the hour is the Integrated Environmental Modeling that can use the past data for understanding the behaviour of the system, present data to measure the existing status and the future data to develop the mitigation measures. To demonstrate this idea, the Krishnagiri reservoir located in Tamil Nadu is chosen for the present study. The reason for choosing this reservoir is that it has lost its storage capacity to 40 Million Cubic metres from 65 Million Metre cube over a period of 50 years. Also, the reservoir reached the eutrophic stage of the trophic status. The integrated watershed-reservoir quality modelling will be able to address the issues of the water quality problem of Krishnagiri Reservoir. It is proposed to integrate Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model and Water Quality Analysis Simulation Programme (WASP) to study the behaviour of the watershed and reservoir under the natural and man-made disturbances. Also, the coupled model will be able to develop mitigation measures in the watershed areas as well in the reservoir to prevent the water quality from further deterioration. Hence the life expectancy of the reservoir will be incereased.