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 have 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 focuses on research in areas related to the impacts of climate change on water resources in the river basins of Central India. The NIH, Regional Centre Bhopal, has prepared an Emergency Action Plan for 9 Dams in Madhya Pradesh and 7 Dams in Chhattisgarh districts, as well as developed the centre to impart training and capacity building in Dam Break Analysis using HEC-RAS.

R&D ACTIVITIES

Since its establishment, the Regional Centre has been involved in demand-driven, field-oriented research studies to address real-time problems faced by stakeholders, primarily water resources departments. The main research areas include drought assessment and mitigation, sedimentation studies for several reservoirs in Central India, water availability studies, climate change impact analysis using modeling, irrigation planning, reservoir operations, river rejuvenation planning, watershed management, flood frequency analysis and flood plain zoning, dam break analysis, groundwater recharge, and water quality. The NIH Regional Centre Bhopal, since its inception, has completed sponsored studies funded by the World Bank, DST, M/o Jal Shakti, M/o Rural Development, and the State Water Resources Departments of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. Additionally, the Centre has undertaken a variety of in-house and consultancy studies within its jurisdiction.

Presently, Regional Centre Bhopal is working on two Research Studies sponsored under INCCC, M/o Jal Shakti, and four In-House R&D studies. These studies are mainly focused on Climate Change issues and their impact on water resources of the State and field-oriented hydrological issues, such as the assessment of the impact of climate change on water resources in the Shipra River basin and the Tawa River basin under climate change conditions. In-house studies are addressing the issues such as assessment of drought risk and its mitigation under climate change scenario in Vidharba region, assessment of risk due to dam and lake related disasters and preparation of action plan in urban sprawls of Central India Region, assessment of groundwater flow dynamics using MODFLOW in shallow aquifer system of Tawa basin and Tawa command, flood assessment and management under climate change conditions in Wainganga river basin. A study on integrated reservoir operation studies for the Mahanadi reservoir project complex in Chhattisgarh was carried out under the Special Project under the National Hydrology Project. The Regional Centre, Bhopal, has conducted a consultancy on Flood Plain Zoning for the Narmada River and a water availability assessment for project formulation in Madhya Pradesh. Centre has conducted seven consultancies for WRD, Chhattisgarh, for the development of an emergency action plan for specified dams.

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.