Impact of climate change on water resources in a semi-arid region of Mewat district, Haryana
Student name: Ms Kirtika Arora
Guide: Dr Devesh Sharma
Year of completion: 2011
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: The work presents a modeling approach to investigate the impact of climate change on present and
future water balance of semi-arid region like Mewat district of Haryana, in the North-West India
which is amongst the most backward regions in the country, using The Soil and Water Assessment
Tool (SWAT) model. With mean annual rainfall limited to 330-440 m, which lasts for only 31 days,
declining groundwater availability, quality, agricultural productivity and soil depletion are the major
problems of the area. Livestock is an integral component of farming in the region which is dominated
by small and marginal farmers, cropping intensity is only 150% compared to 177% for the state as a
whole. Pearlmillet, sorghum, and guar are the principal ‘kharif’ crops where farmers do not apply
any irrigation while wheat and mustard are the ‘rabi’ crops which are being irrigated. Introduction
of canal irrigation has further intensified the widespread problems of soil salinization and waterlogging.
Mandatory spatial data-set used, includes DEM (for watershed delineation), Land Use and
Soil shape files (for HRU analysis). Baseline climatic data of 10 years (1995-2005) was taken for the
assessment of present water balance of Mewat region and CCGM data for the year 2020-2030 and
2040-2050 for assessing the climate change impacts. Data validation was not possible in the present
study because of the lack of the runoff data of the region.
Key Words: Hydrological model- SWAT, climatic variables, watershed, runoff, Special Report on
Emission Scenario (SRES), Coupled Global Climate Model (CCGM3).
