Hydrological Modeling in Middle Narmada Basin, India using SWAT Model

Narmada, a river in central India flows in a rift valley through the state of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat is the important source of water supply and ground water recharge. Therefore watershed management planning and water resource management can be improved in rift valley after accurate simulation of hydrologic processes. In this study the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used on Middle Narmada basin. The basic objective of the present study is to derive the parameters required for runoff modelling using the remote sensing and geospatial database and estimate the runoff of the Middle Narmada basin. The main input data for simulation of SWAT including Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Land use, Soil type, soil properties and hydro-climatological data, were appropriately collected. By providing all the inputs for model set up, SWAT model was simulated for the period of 15 years (1995-2010). The average annual surface runoff is about 244.54 mm. The model was calibrated and validated using SUFI-2 algorithm. The sensitivity analysis of the model to sub-basin delineation and Hydrological Response Unit (HRU) definition thresholds showed that the flow is more sensitive.