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Integrated assessment of extreme events and hydrological responses of Indo-Nepal Gandak River Basin

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Abstract

Changes in climate cause significant alterations in morphometric parameters and may lead to hydro-meteorological hazards. In this study, an attempt has been made to identify drainage morphometric characteristics through topographic, geologic and hydrological information to assess the extreme weather events (flood) over the Gandak River Basin (GRB). The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and rainfall anomaly index (RAI) were used for deducing extreme rainfall incidences derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission precipitation datasets. An assembled frequency distribution as well as trends in RAI and SPI was calculated to understand the hydro-climatological behaviour of the basin. During the monsoon season, the years 1998, 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2017 witnessed the extreme flood events. The variations in heavy and intense rainfall in short time can be linked to extreme flood events, which leads to channel shifting and modifications, can be deduced from provided asymmetric factors and sinuosity index. The results illustrated that both the monsoonal rainfall and the frequency of extreme rainfall over the basin are increasing, which could be a reason for a high severity and frequency of flood events in the GRB.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are thankful to CGIR-CSI for providing SRTM based Digital Elevation Model used in study. We also acknowledge NASA-JAXA (TRMM) for providing rainfall datasets used in the study. Authors are grateful to the DST-Mahamana Centre of Excellence in Climate Change Research funded by Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, Climate Change Programme for providing scientific and technical support.

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Authors thank the Climate Change Programme, Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, for financial support (DST/CCP/CoE/80/2017(G)).

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  1. DST-Mahamana Centre of Excellence in Climate Change Research, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

    Pawan K. Chaubey, Prashant K. Srivastava & R. K. Mall

  2. Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India

    Akhilesh Gupta

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Chaubey, P.K., Srivastava, P.K., Gupta, A. et al. Integrated assessment of extreme events and hydrological responses of Indo-Nepal Gandak River Basin. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 8643–8668 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00986-6

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