Hydrology and Climate Change

27th Feb 2021: Case Studies

The ‘megaberg’ A68 was twice the size of Luxembourg. It has completely melted this year.

Learn more about why melting glaciers are a serious problem:
http://ow.ly/AZo850I44NW

Earth's Water Cycle Is Changing Dramatically, And Much Faster Than We Predicted

"Freshwater cycles from ocean to air to clouds to rivers and back to the oceans. This constant shuttling can give us the illusion of certainty. Freshwater will always come from the tap. Won't it?

Unfortunately, that's not guaranteed. Climate change is shifting where the water cycle deposits water on land, with drier areas becoming drier still, and wet areas becoming even wetter."

Software could help to save up to 80 per cent of water used on UAE farms

"The UAE's farmers can now use new software that helps to plan crop planting and also calculate how much water their land will need over a year.

A study carried out over many years to trace the flow of sap in date palm trees showed that farmers are using nearly three times as much water as they need to irrigate their plants.

It found that farmers typically irrigate each tree with about 300 litres of water a day.

However, by measuring the amount of sap flowing in the trunk of a date palm, researchers found they could cut that to 180 litres a day during the summer, and to as little as 60 to 80 litres in winter. This would save up to 80 per cent of the water used on the country's farms."

One Woman’s Mission to Fight Water Scarcity in Africa | Earth.Org - Past | Present | Future

"Dr. Sónia Santos Assunção, an experienced geophysicist with extensive experience in soil assessment, first successfully carried out Geophysical exploration to detect underground water in Ghana in 2016 with the support of Geo Analysis that provided the equipment, and given the straight-forward applicability and efficiency of the technologies she used, she decided to extend her scientific project beyond one country. The geophysicist will soon embark on a one-year journey across the African continent, travelling 24,000km to cross a total of 21 countries – from Cairo to Cape Town and from Cape Town to Tunisia – to evaluate the presence of underground sources of water and to teach locals how to acquire geophysical data (available satellite images and information will be provided by AQUAFUTURE Groundwater consultancy)."

Old Posts :

How to calculate Water Quality Index considering the source type,intended use and climate ?

This WQI's primary innovation is that it calculates the WQI based on the type of source from which water is collected, the WQI's intended use, and the local climate at the time the samples were retrieved. The source or location from where the sample is collected has an impact on the quality of water which the index must incorporate at the time of calculation. The purpose for which the water quality index is calculated changes the weightage of the importance of the different quality parameters. For example, if WQI is calculated for knowing how drinkable the sample is then the weightage of coliform will increase compared to other parameters as the presence of coliform in the drinking water can not be permitted. The climate of the area from where the water is collected is another criterion to consider at the time of calculating the WQI. Based on the climate also the weightage of water quality parameters will vary. There will be a difference in the weight of importance if the sampl...

Five Most Extreme Hydrologic Events that changed the World

Typhoon Tip, Philipines(Collected from : CSMonitor ) Devastating storms, severe flood, acute famine conditions, etc. hydrological events of extreme nature has changed human history. Any event which is not normal is known as an abnormal event. In the case of hydrology, an event that has a return period of more than 100 years is considered Extreme. According to Herring(2020) of Climate.gov, "An extreme event is a time and place in which weather, climate, or environmental conditions—such as temperature, precipitation, drought, or flooding—rank above a threshold value near the upper or lower ends of the range of historical measurements." Though the threshold is not objective, few researchers have defined "extreme events as those that occur in the highest or lowest 5% or 10% of historical measurements". Some have described events by their deviation from the mean, or by their occurrence interval. Here the most severe five extreme hydrologic events were discussed which ...

Five open source free hydrologic models that you can use to model runoff of micro to macro watersheds

The principal objective of hydrologic models is to forecast the runoff of a surface water body, especially dendritic systems like rivers, streams, etc. The inputs to these models are generally Rainfall/Precipitation, Soil Characteristics, and other Climatic parameters like evapotranspiration, humidity, etc. LULC and geo-morphology are also used as the required input parameters of the hydrologic models. Both input and output of these models are temporally as well as spatially variable. Now the resolution varies with different models. Some models consider all the sub-basins to be a single watershed and determine the output based on the characteristics of this single watershed(lumped).In contrast, some other models will consider the {impact|effect} of each of the sub-basins on the central outflow of the watershed(distributed).In a few models, the entire watershed is divided into grids or units of uniform dimension. However, the accuracy is highest for the models, which considers the {impa...

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