H057-0006
Conceptualization of Spatial and Temporal Scale Issues in Indian Hydrology

Wednesday, 9 December 2020
Poster
J. Indu, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Interdisciplinary Programme in Climate Studies, Mumbai, India, Argha Banerjee, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, India, Earth and Climate Science, Pune, India, Karthikeyan Lanka, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering (CSRE), Mumbai, India, Neha Khandekar, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore, India, Bangalore, India, Satish Kumar Regonda, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Environmental and Water resources Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Hyderabad, India and Seetha N, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, Civil Engineering, Hyderabad, India
Abstract:
Hydrological science is dominated by processes which get represented by a hierarchy of scales. Realistic conceptualization of physical processes occurring in nature differ at spatial and temporal scales. As the processes which are considered appropriate at a given scale often tends to be not applicable at the immediate adjoining scales. The process scales differ with representation scale in the mathematical world when formulated. Spatial / Temporal changes in land forms and their interrelationships play dominant role in control of flows and fluxes with the driver being monsoon. Examining the disparity among process-, measurement- and modeling- scales is quitessential.

In this work, we investigate the intricate aspects of space and time scales in hydrology for Indian landscape through few research questions: (1) How to identify the dominant processes of interest at different scales? For example, consider dominant processes controlling flow of water and transport of solute/contaminants at different space- and time- scales. (2) How do formulations of processes change with respect to variable scales? for example, how do laws of water balance that accounts for storage and fluxes of water, change with respect to spatial representations of soil moisture ? (3) How to develop guidelines that result in optimal measurement of processes at both spatiotemporal scales; for example, can we develop set of guidelines for satellite constellations that improve temporal scale of precipitation observations? (4) How to understand changes in processes at different space-time- scales in the context of hydroclimatology? (5) How to bridge process understanding at different space-time scales in the context of human-natural environmental systems, whether there are any scale-dependent pattern of coevolution between the social and hydrological units?

Through these questions, we propose the framework for a state of the art test bed basins in India for addressing scale issues in hydrometeorology.

[Authors acknowledge the encouragement from Prof. M. Sivapalan(University of Illinois) , Prof. P. P. Mujumdar (IISc Bangalore), Prof. D. Nagesh Kumar (IISc Bangalore), Prof. M. S. Mohan Kumar (IISc Bangalore), Prof. N. Balaji (IIT Madras) through the Discussion meeting on “Scale Issues in hydrology” from 1-3 December 2019, Karnataka, India]

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