Sustaining Himalayan Water Resources in a Changing Climate (SusHi-Wat)

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In this project, we propose to investigate how water is stored in, and moves through, a Himalayan river system (the inter-linked Beas and Sutjej catchments) in northern India at daily to decadal timescales and to use the resulting insights to develop and test a robust model of the whole system that can be used to inform current and future decision making to support the sustainable development and management of the region's water resources. Building on the success of the MICCI project (within the Changing Water Cycle - South Asia programme) in the region, the project will address user requirements centred on understanding and managing the effects of climatological and hydrological variability and socio-economic development on delivery of critical ecosystems services, notably the irrigation water supply-hydropower generation-flood risk management nexus.A combination of state-of-the-art modelling, field studies, satellite-based remote sensing and observation will be developed to improve the process-based understanding of Himalayan water resources availability and quality, considering meteorology, surface-water, groundwater, seasonal snow, permanent snow/ice, soil and vegetation. These stores and flows will be considered within a 'whole-system' framework that explicitly recognises their inter-dependencies and interactions.The improved understanding will be used to set-up, calibrate and validate a robust system model of the river basins using the widely used Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) software system. This model will integrate both 'natural' catchment processes and human modifications of the river basin system into account. These latter include irrigation, hydropower generation, and inter-basin water transfers. The whole system model will be used to understand how the impact of climate change, land-use change and population growth will affect water resources (including flood risk management), water demand (irrigation and public water demand) and inter-sectoral competition for water supply (for water transfers, irrigation and hydropower) through their interactions with the hydrological cycle. The results will be used to inform decision-making and support the sustainable development of India's water resources and hence long-term socio-economic growthThe project will involve collaboration between internationally-leading scientists at 4 Indian institutions (IIT-Roorkee; NIT- Hamirpur, National Institute of Hydrology-Roorkee and the Indian Institute of Science- Bangalore), 2 UK Universities (Heriot-Watt University and Cranfield University) and one UK research institute (British Antarctic Survey). It will build on an existing and thriving collaboration between many of the UK and Indian partners. We will work with key regional and national stakeholders in India (farmers, agricultural advisers, river basin management board and the national farmers association) to ensure the relevance and impact of the research.