Assessment of Climatic Variables for the Mahi River Basin in Western India

One of the major problems that humanity is currently facing is climate change, whose effects can be seen everywhere in the world. Climate change is a result of both natural and manmade factors. These alterations have been more pronounced since the start of the industrial revolution, which resulted in significant emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, obstructing the outflow of longwave radiation and causing an increase in global warming. An attempt has been made to investigate the variability in rainfall, mean temperature, potential evapotranspiration and aridity index in the context of climate change based on the historical as well as the future dynamically downscaled climate datasets of precipitation and temperature for Mahi basin in western India which presently falls in a semi-arid climate located in the water scarce region of the country. The analysis has been performed for three distinct time periods i.e. baseline period (1961-90); present period (1991-2005); and future time periods, 2006-40. The analysis suggests that the rainfall is projected to decrease, the mean temperature is projected to increase. It is clear that the climate change impacts are already visible in the baseline and present time periods and the increases in the future, decrease in rainfall may lead to drier conditions in the basin. Optimal use of the available water resources along with the conservation of the scarce water resources may be a strategy that may go a long way in addressing the projected future water shortages in the basin.