Baseflow index assessment for agriculture-industry led Ramganga river basin

Abstract

The baseflow index is a crucial parameter in basin-scale water balance studies. However, it has frequently been neglected for various reasons, viz. near-impossible direct measurement, simplification of the model, and non-existence of the hydro-meteorological data. Hence, baseflow is computed for the Ramganga river basin in the present study, for which a scientific assessment had not been done previously. The classified-archived-observed river discharge data are obtained from Central Water Commission (CWC) and are applied in an analytical filter to assess the baseflow index (BFI) at all exiting CWC hydro-meteorological sites in the Ramganga river basin. The average values of BFIs for the CWC sites vary between 27% and 38%. The results are found to be consistent and showed significance with the hydrological characteristics of the basin. The results have also been discussed to account for various possible anthropogenic effects, which are assessed as having no significant impact.