Water management challenges in the
Indo-Gangetic plain
JimmyO’Keeffe
September2016
Talkoverview
•  Overview of India's water resource problems
•  The challenges facing water management
•  CHANSE project – working towards solutions
Watersecurity
(http://www.ceicdata.com/India.html)
• 
Green revolution: large scale land
use change
• 
Improvements in technology
(irrigation, seed variety, fertiliser)
• 
Increase in irrigated area and
irrigation intensity
ET from
irrigation
(Boucher et al., Climate Dynamics, 2004)
Watersecurity
Watersecurity
a
b
NewDelhi
c
a–Tiwarietal2009,b–Rodell2009,,c–Macdonaldetal2016
DataCollec4on
•  Semi-structured interviews with
approximately 200 farmers in
Jalaun, Sitapur, Sultanpur &
Hamirpur
•  ParBcipants – farmers growing rice
and/orwheat
(photobyS.Swarnkar)
•  50 farmers interviewed in each
district in 10-12 randomly selected
villages
•  Conductedthroughtranslators
•  All interviews audio recorded &
GPSlocaBonstaken
DataCollec4on
DataCollec4on
DataCollec4on
Challenges
• 
Significant challenges due to
scale, bio biophysical
complexity and the dynamics
of its institutional and
socioeconomic characteristics
• 
Impact on ecosystem services
J.O’Keeffe
• 
Imbalance between water
demand and seasonal
availability
• 
Lack of regulations and
governance
Hindustan times
Workingtowardsasolu4on
CHANSE framework for holistic understanding of
complex dynamics of the human-natural system
Water end users
(agriculture, urban environments,
river ecology, fisheries and biodiversity)
CHANSE
framework for
decision
making support
Human-natural system
Scenario constraints
(river stages, sediment
characteristics
and groundwater levels)
(climate variability, policy and
techno-economic
factors)
Workingtowardsasolu4on
Datasets
•  Irrigation and urban
water use drivers
•  Ecological flow and
water use
thresholds
Modelling
tools
Improved
estimations
•  Socio-hydrological
systems
•  Water management
strategies
•  Surface water and
groundwater fluxes
•  Short-term weather
predictions and
recycled precipitation
Workingtowardsasolu4on
Providing information for improved
decision-making on water allocation
Explicit
accounting
for drivers
of water
demand
Internal
integration of
human
systems into
hydrological
simulations
Use of subseasonal
and
seasonal
forecasts for
water
allocation
Identification
of thresholds
in water
requirements
and
availability
Workingtowardsasolu4on
HydrofluxIndia
Hydrometeorologicalfeedbacksandchangesinwater
storageandfluxesinNorthernIndia
ResolvingmajorfluxesintheGangesbasin
Aims
Workingtowardsasolu4on
Reconstruc4onofhistoricalland-usedynamics
•  Historicalsatelliteimagery
•  Land-useandsocio-economictrends
Integratedhydro-climatemodelling
•  Coupledgroundwater–surfacewatermodel
•  Feedbackswithaglobalclimatemodel
Simula4ngpastandfuturetrends
•  Groundwateravailability
•  Changesinextremeevents
Workingtowardsasolu4on
Hydro-economicmodelling
framework
Informedanddriventhroughfield
work
Y₁
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EnergyCost
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year
C₁ C₂ C₃ C₄
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Workingtowardsasolu4on
Gandak barrage regulates
flow into the Indian plains
Water use for agriculture
and fisheries
Groundwater-dependant
urban water supply
Workingtowardsasolu4on
Imperial College London
Ana Mijic
Wouter Buytaert; Kaveh Madani
Jimmy O’Keeffe
University of Exeter
Slobodan Djordjevic
Diego Gomez; Dragan Savic
Simon Moulds
British Geological Survey
Chris Jackson
Alan MacDonald; Dan Lapworth
Johanna Scheidegger
IIT Bombay
Subimal Gosh, Subhankar Karmakar
Arpita Mondal
IISc Bangalore
Predeep Mujumdar
IITM Pune
Roxy Mathew Koll
ATREE
Jagdish Krishnaswamy
Nachiket Kelkar
T.M. Bhagalpur University in Bihar
Sunil Kumar Choudhary
Workingtowardsasolu4on
@ChanseIGP
Jimmy O’Keeffe
[email protected]
@Jimmy_OKeeffe
Ana Mijic
[email protected]
@leiastarspear