About Center

VISION:

The Central part of India is primarily dependent on rainfed agriculture due to the lack of irrigation infrastructure and facilities. Lack of appropriate water resource management, degraded watersheds, recurrent droughts, excessive soil erosion, groundwater depletion, deterioration of water quality, and reduction of forest cover has given rise to inadequate water availability, reduced crop yield, and exacerbated poverty in this region. Under these circumstances, sustainable management of water resources including its quality is one of the key challenges in the R & D activities. The NIH Regional Centre Bhopal has thus aimed to carry out scientific research to develop appropriate methods and methodologies for sustainable management of water resources and scientific research in the broad areas of research like drought, artificial recharge, reservoir sedimentation, command area management, etc. This region experiences frequent extreme events like floods, droughts, and heatwaves and the Centre also focussed on research in areas related to impacts of climate change on water resources in river basins of Central India. The NIH, Regional Centre Bhopal has been identified as Rain Water Centre to impart training and capacity building for artificial recharge and rainwater harvesting.

The Central India Hydrology Regional Centre (CIHRC), Bhopal is formerly known as Ganga Plains South Regional Centre was established at Sagar on 1st December 1995 with a specific objective to undertake aid, promote and coordinate systematic and scientific studies in all aspects of hydrology in north-flowing tributaries of the Ganges. The Centre was relocated to MP-WALMI Campus, Bhopal on November 1, 2012. Since the Centre is located in central India, it has been renamed as the “Central India Hydrology Regional Centre (CIHRC)” in the year 2015. This Centre carries out research studies in various hydrological problems of basins and sub-basins of Central India namely Banas, Chambal, Kalisindh, Betwa, Dhasan, Ken, Tons, Son, Mahanadi, Narmada, Tapti, Wainganga etc. The jurisdiction of CIHRC covers Madhya Pradesh, southern part of Uttar Pradesh, southeast Rajasthan, northern part of Chhattisgarh, western part of Jharkhand and Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

R&D ACTIVITIES

Since establishment, the Regional Centre involved in demand-driven, field-oriented research studies to solve real-time problems of stakeholders mainly water resources departments. The major research conducted by the Centre are drought assessment and mitigation for the Bundelkhand region, sedimentation studies for several reservoirs in Central India, water availability studies, impact of climate change using modeling approach, irrigation planning in the irrigation command, river rejuvenation planning, watershed management, etc.

Presently, Regional Centre Bhopal is working on six Purpose Driven Studies (PDS) under National Hydrology Project (NHP). Three PDS studies were carried out in collaboration with the Water Resources Department, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh, while one with the Water Resources Department, Govt. of Rajasthan. These PDS studies are mainly focused on field-oriented hydrological issues such as reservoir operation policy for the Tawa irrigation project, assessment of irrigation return flow in Sanjay Sagar command in MP, impact and performance evaluation of irrigation project in MP, impacts of upcoming irrigation projects, and climate change on the droughts and desertification in Chambal basin, integrated assessment of the impacts of climate change and land-use change on the hydrology in Narmada basin through hydrological modelling approaches and, comparative evaluation of different efficiencies in the open canal and piped irrigation systems in Rajasthan. A study on modelling of Narmada using the GWAVA model was carried out in collaboration with the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, U.K. A DST sponsored project on the Revival of village ponds through scientific interventions was also carried out for the Sagar district of MP. The Regional Centre has completed six consultancies for WRDMP to solve specific water-related issues like the development of the emergency action plan, water availability assessment, and vetting the hydrology of water resources projects in Madhya Pradesh along with the planning of rainwater harvesting system for the IIT Indore campus.

Interaction with other Organizations: The Regional Centre has been involved in many National and International funded R&D projects in collaboration with NIH headquarters and other state and central government departments. The scientists of the Centre were actively involved in the Jal Shakti Abhiyan of the Ministry of Jal Shakti. The activities of the Centre follow a close interaction with various Central and State agencies in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, such as CGWB, CWC, CPCB, WALMI, WRD, PHED, SWMA, etc. The scientists of the Regional Centre provide technical guidance to the students of various reputed institutes and universities such as Banaras Hindu University, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, Jawahar Lal Nehru Krishi Vishvavidyalay, Jabalpur, Jharkhand Central University, Ranchi, etc. for M.Tech and Ph.D.