NHP e-Bulletin

• NIH organised the 8^th R&D Session on PDS under NHP on 4^th & 5^th August, 2020.
• A Social Media progress review meeting was held by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, RD & GR through video conferencing on 10th August 2020.
• Review meeting on National Hydrology Project conducted by the Director of AP Ground Water and Water Audit Department, Vijayawada on 3^rd August, 2020.

• Honourable Minister for Water Resources Govt. of AP. Dr. P. Anil Kumar Yadav has reviewed the site plan for construction of State data centre under NHP at Visakhapatnam with Director AP Ground Water and Water Audit Department and Engineering officials on 1^st August,2020. He has directed to complete all procedure to commence the work on Vijayadashami festival.

A customized course on “GIS and Remote Sensing in Water Resources” (17^th -27^th Aug) for theengineers of Water Resources Department, Government of Rajasthan was conducted by the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organization, Department of Space, Dehradun. 20 participants attended this training. Amidst the present COVID-19 pandemic situation across globe the course was conducted online. The officials were initially exposed to technology like remote sensing and geographical information system. Further, the course elaborated on application of remote sensing and GIS in water resources problems. The course covered following topics: Quantification of hydrological elements, application of digital elevation models in water resources, hydrological modeling, water level and river flow modeling, site suitability for water harvesting structures, soil erosion and sediment yield modeling, land degradation studies, reservoir sedimentation assessment, irrigation water management and drought monitoring assessment. The participants carried out hands-on training on few of the topics covered during the training using open source GIS software.

Basic Hydrologic Sciences for the Asian Region (2020) was organized by National Water Academy in association with World Meteorological Organization and UCAR, the COMET Program during 27 July – 11 September 2020 for duration of seven weeks. The concluding Webinar shall be conducted on 21^st September 2020.The Distance Learning (DL) course is designed to meet the needs of officials, who work with hydrologic data, particularly in the areas of flood forecasting and design flood analysis etc. The course wasintended to provide an understanding of the hydrological cycle, runoff processes, unit Hydrograph, flood forecasting, elements of hydrologic modeling etc. and will prepare the participants for further study in hydrologic methods and forecasting.Thefaculty of this course comprised of core faculty of NWA and experts of the relevant topics from WMO, COMET UCAR. International DL Course wasbeing attended by 137 Participants - 94 Indian participants from Central, PSUs, State Government Organizations, Private & Academic Organization and 43 International Participants from 17 other (RA II) Asian Countries nominated by WMO.

Elets National Water Innovation summit 2020 was heldon 28thAugust through virtual conference. It is pleasure to intimate that WRD, Rajasthan has been awarded in 2 categories -innovation in technology under NHP and leading state water boards to IGNP. Secretary WRD Rajasthan Sh. Naveen Mahajan received awards. A panel discussion was also organised at Elet National Water Innovation summit through virtual medium which was made live on Ministry of Jal Shakti's Facebook page.

Survey of India organized the training on "Creation of Digital Elevation Model(DEM)” on 25th August 2020 under National Hydrology Project. 113 Officers from different State Implementing Agencies participated in the training.The training wasvery useful for State Govt. departmentsas it trained them to use the DEM and data generated under NHP.

• 5^th August - Mr. Amit Lakhera facilitated training session on MIS. The session had interactions and clarifications with participants from IAs. 51 participants attended this webinar.
• 14^th August - The session had in-depth interactions and clarifications with participants from IAs. A total of 36 participantsattended this webinar.
• 19^th August - Webinar on "Weekly Hands on Training and Problem solving on NHP MIS" followed by Q&A. There were 32 participants for this webinar.

• 6^th August 2020 - This webinar covered Flood Forecast Module in WIMS. The Sub Topics covered were Creation of Flood Forecast, Data Type Mapping, Flood Data Entry, Inflow Forecast Data, Level Forecast Data, New Reports (From 2018), and Flood Forecasting Website. The session had in-depth interactions and clarifications with participants from IAs. The totalparticipant of this webinar was 40
• 13^th August - Mr. Meet Kumar Agarwal facilitated WIMS webinar on "User Management in WIMS" followed by Q&A. There were 116 participantsforthe webinar.
• 20^th August - Mr. Meet Kumar Agarwal facilitated WIMS webinar followed by Q&A. There were 77 participants forthe webinar.
• 27^th August - WIMS webinar on "Telemetry Management" followed by Q&A. There were 76 participants forthe webinar.

Mrs. Pamela Patrick and Mr. Srinivas Devarakonda from World Bank facilitated the Hands on Training Programme on STEP on 21st August 2020. Some of the topics covered are handling complaints, procurement plans, activity details, road map and signing contract and so on. The sessions had in-depth interactions and clarifications with participants from IAs. The webinar was attended by 23 participants.

Sikkim

The construction work for State Water Resources Information Data Centre Sikkim which commenced on 29/05/2019 is under progress as on 28/08/20. The ongoing work is delayed to a certain extent due to COVID 19 pandemic situation.

Tripura

Boring, lifting and lowering of pipe of pizometer drilling in Sabroom in South Tripura District under National Hydrology Project.

Assam

Evaluation of Tender is under process for the activity “Supply and Installation Testing, Commissioning and Maintenance of RTDAS” for establishment of Real time data acquisition System across the State of Assam which will be a revolutionary change in the field of Hydromateorological data collection.

Rajasthan

• Under this stage, availability of real time data with the decision makers likeRain fall, intensity of rainfall and duration of rainfall in the catchment of a basin. Runoff data in the river, Water level and storage data of damsare crucialto take appropriate decision. Rajasthan is also taking this opportunity by installing hydro metrological instruments like automatic rain gauges, automation weather stations, automatic water level recorder, surface and ground water quality sensors and developing water quality lab along with state level data centres.The data collected at remote RTDAS stations will be stored and transmitted through INSAT telemetry every hour to Control room.
  • The data of 238 stations that are installed and fully functional arenow coming into the WIMS platform.
  • The Letter of Acceptance has been issued to the winning bidder for ‘Real Time Water Quality Monitoring System” on 26.08.20.
• As part of its “Water Resource Monitoring System” component, some reservoirs, canal and groundwater operation systems will be equipped with the remote control systems (SCADA) that will allow the control of gates and operation from a control room and, hence, allow system responses on a real time basis during floods or any other emergency. Rajasthan is taking this opportunity by installing SCADA at various Dams and canals. Now we have signed the agreements of following bids during the month of August, 2020:
  • Bid for ‘Supply, Installation and maintenance of SCADA system at Jawai dam’ agreement signed on 10th of August, 2020.
  • Bid for ‘Supply, Installation and maintenance of SCADA system at Narmada canal project Sanchore” agreement signed on 11th of August,2020
  • Bid for ‘Supply, Installation, Testing, Commissioning, Operation and Maintenance of SCADA system for Bhakra & Gang Canal System of Water Resources Department, Rajasthan under National Hydrology Project (NHP)’ for which Notification of Award of Contract has been issued on 6th August 2020 & Agreement is signed on 26th of August 2020.

Kerala

During the financial year 2019-20, the Kerala Groundwater Department installed DWLR Telemetry in the existing piezometers developed during Phase I of National Hydrology Project for improving the Hydrological Information System (HIS) of the State. Received 150 numbers of Telemetry and 87 were successfully installed in wells of different Districts. Water level data is receiving at State Data Center, Thiruvananthapuram.

Andhra Pradesh GW

In West Godavari District, Under the National Hydrology Project a total of 104 piezometerswasinstalled in phased manner. Under Phase –I, 33 nos piezometers were drilled to measure the water levels and both Pre-monsoon (May) and Post-Monsoon (November) water samples were collected and conducted chemical analysis of the samples. Under Phase –II, 37 nos piezometers were drilled to measure the water levels. To reduce the data gaps in the district, further under phase –III, 34 nos piezometers were drilled during the year 2019-20.From these 104 nos piezometers, the data collection points have been increased and this results in effective management of ground water resources.

Telangana

As part of groundwater monitoring, Department has procured 240 nos of DWLR's (Digital Water level Recorder (hydrostatic pressure type) with telemetry for RTDAS(Real-Time Data Acquisition System). The installation of these DWLR's is already started in the districts with a frequency of monitoring at 6 hourly intervals (initially). After analysing the data, the frequency of monitoring will be revised to standardize the frequency. Pre installation Tests also conducted by department for Bench Test (Zero water level) and Static water level test for some of the DWLR's.

A virtual meeting with district officers is also conducted by Director along with Data centre in charge officer before the DWLRs installation process initiated. The district officers were guided on the process of installation and precautions to be taken up before and during installation process. They were also instructed to check the water levels before and after installation with manual measurement for validation. The snippets of Virtual meeting are given in.

Assessment of impacts of groundwater salinity on regional groundwater resources, current and future situation in Mewat, Haryana – possible remedy and resilience building measures

A purpose driven study (PDS) under NHP has been undertaken by National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee in Mewat (renamed Nuh) district of Haryana for understanding the sources of salinization, their relative contributions and assess seasonal variability for planning best practices in water management and suggesting remedial measures. Sources of salinization were identified using deuterium excess which is calculated from the stable isotopes (ẟ18O and ẟD). Recently following guidelines of COVID 19, for continuous monitoring of salinity, conductivity logger was installed in the piezometer. Rain gauge was also installed for rain measurements required for initiating the experiments on aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) under field conditions. In addition to this, a network of piezometers were developed. A technical paper based on this study has been published in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies. The study put forward a mechanism for identifying the source of seasonal variability in groundwater salinization which will be useful in decision making for its remedial measures and management.