NATIONAL HYDROLOGY PROJECT
Context
- Recently, the Union Minister of Jal Shakti has reviewed the progress made under the National Hydrology Project (NHP) in its mid-term.
About National Hydrology Project
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- The NHP will help in gathering Hydro-meteorological data which will be stored and analysed on a real time basis and can be seamlessly accessed by any user at the State/District/village level. The project envisages to cover the entire country.
- The components of the proposal are:
- In Situ Hydromet Monitoring System and Hydromet Data Acq uisition System.
- Setting up of National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC).
- Water Resources Operation and Management System
- Water Resources Institutions and Capacity Building
- Benefits of National Hydrology Project
- Data storage, exchange, analysis and dissemination through National Water Informatics Centre.
- Lead time in flood forecast from 1 day to at least 3 days
- Mapping of flood inundation areas for use by the disaster management authorities
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- Assessment of surface and ground water resources in a river basin for better planning & allocation for PMKSY and other schemes of Govt. of India.
- Reservoir operations through seasonal yield forecast, drought management.
- Fulfilling the objectives of Digital India.
- People Centric approach: The programme envisages ultimate aim for water management through scientific data collection, dissemination of information on water availability in all blocks of the country and establishing of National Water Information Centre. The automated systems for Flood Forecasting is aimed to reduce water disaster ultimately helping vulnerable population. It is people and farmer centric programme as information on water can help in predicting water availability and help farmers to plan their crops and other farm related activities.
Mid-term Review:
- The NHP has been termed as a project of National importance since it establishes a nationwide ‘Nodal’ ‘one point’ platform for all states to collaborate and share data pertaining to water resources.
- Under the NHP, a nationwide repository of water resources data, National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) has been established.
- NHP is focusing on establishment of Real Time Data Acquisition System (RTDAS) on pan India basis, which would complement the manual data acquisition stations and would lay a strong foundation for informed decision making for better water resources management.
- Through the NHP, the management of water resources shall witness a sea change since it will adopt an integrated approach and make use of cutting edge technology.
- Concerns:
- Collecting data from scattered agencies posed a major bottleneck in effective water resource management and also a stumbling block in important policy level decision making.
- The lackadaisical approach and lack of interest shown by previous Governments has resulted in unavailability of reliable historic data.