Enhancing Monsoon Predictions for the Upper Chambal Catchment Through Temporal and Spatial Downscaling of Predicted Future Precipitation

From all kinds of scientific investigations and research it is said that the climate change impact will strongly affect the monsoon and the rainfall patterns in India. A catchment wise assessment is needed to understand the real impact on water management aspects related to water availability and floods. The study has been undertaken to gauge the forthcoming patterns of precipitation variability across upper Chambal River catchment area up to Gandhi Sagar Dam. The SDSM was harnessed to refine the results from GCMs spanning three projected timeframes: (2006–2036), (2037–2067), and (2068–2098) for the RCPs 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5. The outcomes of the study paint a picture of an impending "wetter" monsoon season on a monthly scale and Specifically under the CanESM2 (RCP 2.6) there is an overall annual precipitation increase of 0.22%, 11.21% and 5.65% during timeframe for the years 2006–2036, 2037–2067 and 2068–2098 respectively. These findings suggest that as we move into the future more substantial rainfall during the monsoon season compared to other times of the year is expected. The study also indicates a significant uptick of daily extreme rainfall occurrences. It has been observed that there is a substantial percentage hike in the extreme event frequency as compared to the baseline period (1983–1995) are primarily observed during months outside the monsoon period specially those proceeding and succeeding the monsoon period.